


Awaken, My Darling

by Onyxed



Series: Awaken My Darling [1]
Category: Sanditon (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:55:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 47,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23052067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onyxed/pseuds/Onyxed
Summary: Picks up after the finale (1×08) but on a more morose note. Charlotte has moved on as much as she can but Sidney can't or won't. This is about the aftermath.Just know that tragedy is my bread and butter, more Bronte than Austen a la Wuthering Heights.
Relationships: Charlotte Heywood & Sidney Parker, Charlotte Heywood/James Stringer, Charlotte Heywood/Sidney Parker
Series: Awaken My Darling [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117142
Comments: 721
Kudos: 581





	1. Chapter 1

Sidney Parker had engaged himself to Eliza Campion for the ability of her fortune to save Sanditon and by extension his family. Everything he held dear teetered on that match, even for the worse. Charlotte had been the cost and he’d desperately needed her to understand why he’d done it. In the end he knew that she did. Still, it did nothing to alleviate the ache in his chest and the unconscious desperation of his hands to reach out to her. As if he could will her back into existence before him. As if he could keep her with him, a shelter for the storm his life had become.

But she was gone. Back to her little country home. That had been several months ago and Sidney had missed her everyday for it. It happened almost out of nowhere. Sanditon had a moderately successful first season, despite the fire and the destruction. Eliza had already begun releasing funds to him and upon hearing his brother’s misfortune had managed to secure a few investments from wealthy benefactors, oddly enough Babbington and Esther being among the first. They’d developed a soft spot for where they’d come together and Babbington was a much dearer friend to Sidney than Crowe. And for the time being they still had Lady Denham and her ever critical investment. Still, progress was slow and Young Stringer and his men had trouble putting their faith back in Tom.

It was Sidney however who had become the pillar of Sanditon. Even though it had been entirely unintentional, and he still found himself resisting that particular role. With Sidney now a permanent fixture in Sanditon he was able to more successfully curb Tom’s extravagant tendencies in favor of more practical concerns. Tom made attempts to rebuke his younger brother but Sidney only ever needed to remind Tom of his failures- something no one else ever seemed to do- and all would eventually settle.

Tom would always be a dreamer, he could only ever see things how they could be and as a consequence struggled to live in the now and consider the realities. In some ways Sidney envied his elder brother. Tom loved his wife and children, well and truly and when he wanted something he went right out and did it. Charlotte had been right in her estimation that Sidney was the sensible brother and every day he thought about the price he paid for it. He did not hate Eliza and he did not regret saving his family from destitution, or even Sanditon as a whole. 

It was Charlotte, always Charlotte. 

Before her he might’ve left Tom to clean up his own mess. Might’ve left Sanditon to fall to ruin without a thought for all the other people who resided in the beloved small seaside town. If it weren’t for Charlotte herself… he would be with her right then. They might be living the life he’d only had the briefest chance of having. 

Sidney missed her all the time.

He had wanted to write to her, to ask how she was- but everytime he tried he stopped himself. It would be cruel to try to keep the thread between them alive. She did not write. That perhaps stung the most, that even someone as kind as Charlotte would not so much as reach for even mere friendship after what had transpired between them. He wished she would write even if it was just to tell how she hated him, something... anything. 

She did, however, write to Georgiana it seemed. The letter had sat on a little salver in the drawing room as he waited for Georgiana to return from a walk with Arthur. Georgiana might’ve still despised him but he found comfort in her newfound friendship with Arthur despite Diana’s express dislike and mistrust. Sidney felt Georgiana and Arthur brought out a different kind of exuberance in one another that seemed to the benefit of both. Georgiana seemed to accept her place in Sanditon, especially as the renovations began to attract all kinds of wealth and variety of people. Sidney had only been waiting a few moments when he’d intended to reach for the newspaper on the side table and saw the small fold of paper. 

It was so inconspicuous and unassuming... a tiny rectangle folded crisp and small enough to fit in his palm. The sharp and curling scrawl somehow contrasted with the clean silver tray beneath it. Charlotte had developed a habit it seemed when she’d taken on the task of organizing Tom’s papers for him. When Sidney crossed through them himself, appointing himself a master of Sanditon’s finances since all trust in Tom had virtually disappeared... he came to know her scrawl immediately. He even kept one such note tucked into his billfold. It had been a part of a receipt set into the tie of a particular folder, simply noting. “Very important, do not forget”. 

Sidney had stared at the note for a long time after he’d discovered it, his fingers tracing the sharp but delicate loops and curves of the letters. He’d torn off the corner note and folded it gently into his billfold, keeping it with him wherever he went. He wondered sometimes if he kept it as a reminder to himself why he was doing what he was doing- to never forget why because the marriage and the investments and his family- it was all so important. He did it all for a reason. No matter how desperate his longing became, those reasons were still reasons. 

Perhaps it was also to remind himself not to forget Charlotte. To forever keep a piece of her with, a momento that it had been real- that she was out there somewhere, holding his deepest affections with her wherever she went. She’d been the second most pivotal point in his life, more than Eliza… more than Georgiana… more than nearly drinking himself to death in Antigua. All he'd done, all the good had been because of her… for her. Because even if she hated him, a secret part of him hoped that one day… she might be proud of him.

_ Mrs. Charlotte Stringer _

Sidney had had to force himself to reread the signature over and over again before he could even touch the offending paper.  _ No _ ... He’d only just seen Young Stringer not but a few weeks prior and the man had said nothing of a wife. Though despite their civility toward one another, Stringer never volunteered information about himself to Sidney and Sidney for his part did not ask. 

There were plenty of girls named Charlotte, he tried to reason. Still, only one who might be writing to Georgiana.  _ Mrs _ ….as in wife of… Sidney’s brain could not make the pieces fit, or more that his mind knew immediately the implication but his shattering heart would not allow it to be true. Would not allow the image to come to fruition. Sidney snatched up the letter and ripped violently at the seal- there was no regard for Georgiana’s privacy or the notion that he might under any circumstances be mistaken…

_ Dearest Georgiana, _

_ I trust you are doing well, I miss you so. James tells me you are often at our soon-to-be-home in Sanditon and giving him apt advice as to what would best please me. I thank you for keeping him in good spirits while we are apart. I must confess to you three things. The first that I miss my husband dearly. I did not think my heart would ache as it does but our marriage has been so short as you know and he comes to me so briefly in Willingden. It is hardly enough and I hope you do not think me so selfish, however my heart aches for our life together to truly begin as man and wife. Though, I should venture to say trials are the true mark of a marriage are they not? _

_ The second confession I must make is that I fear my husband’s devotion to Sanditon. His father’s death has left a mark on him I cannot touch. I see it weigh on his thoughts and I wish he would only confide in me his burdens. Although there may be hypocrisy at play on my part as I have not confided in him my own misgivings.  _

_ My third confession, Georgiana, is that I fear what a return to Sanditon would mean for me in particular. When I came last I had the fortune of being under care and protection of the Parkers. I am not ashamed of my husband’s circumstance, do not mistake me. I only fear that my nature will go unchecked and of hurting my husband’s prospects. I fear an opinionated wife will harm his dreams somehow, he has always wanted to build a city himself and he has begun nearly that with Sanditon. James confides in me that it is Sidney who is his truest ally, providing him men and honest critique for what is and isn’t within reason. I hope you will take this truth and find it in your heart to forgive Sidney, he is a good man- _

Sidney crumpled the letter in his fist, so tight he felt as though the skin might tear and the bones snap. He couldn’t read anymore. He could barely breathe. Charlotte… his Charlotte… had married Young Stringer. She was a wife… to someone else. Sidney felt his stomach churn and felt the urge to break and destroy anything he could lay his hands on. He was torn between a violent anger and devastating despair. 

“Sidney?” Came a voice behind him and Sidney turned to see that it was Georgiana. Georgiana looked at him quizzically as Sidney’s own features held a look of utter betrayal. Sidney held up the offending papers, crushed and altogether unrecognizable.

“I do not know what that is.” She said simply and dismissively.

“It is a letter to you…” He ground out in a familiar brusque anger, “from a Mrs. Stringer.” Sidney’s low rumbling voice was careful and altogether frightening. Georgiana for her part had the grace to look away, understanding now his look of devastation. “How long have you… when did she-” Sidney swallowed hard and Georgiana for the first time felt guilt she hadn’t expected, he was cracking before her very eyes. “When were they wed?” She had foolishly thought when the news came to Sidney she would rejoice in his misfortune, that he might understand intimately the heartbreak his interference had caused her and Otis. She hadn’t expected to feel the guilt- much less an empathy that lacked any kind of vindictiveness.

Georgiana tried to stand firm, she did not like the feeling creeping in her chest. She wanted to hate him, but the glassy look of his eyes and the timbre of his voice shaking just slightly evoked remorse and pity. “A little more than a month ago. It was quick and very small, they married in her family’s garden.” 

The anger for now seemed to have dissipated within Sidney as he fiddled aimlessly with the remnants of the letter in his large hands. He looked for all the world like a child, vulnerable and confused. She could see it settling on him like a thin veil and so Georgiana let her pity take her a few steps further, her voice becoming soft in the pregnant air between them. “Mr. Stringer is making adjustments to his home, he will bring her to Sanditon when it's ready. For now she remains with her family in Willingden while he travels to see her weekly-”

Sidney couldn’t bear any more information. Georgiana’s words faded in the ether as he strode out of the house for his horse. Willingden was not far, but he’d never been there before and so he rode immediately to Trafalgar House and requested Tom’s coach take him to the Heywood home as quickly as possible. The coachmen nodded astutely informing Sidney as he mounted the carriage that the journey would be a few hours. Sidney for his part climbed into the carriage and barked that he did not care so long as the driver went quickly and did not stop.


	2. Chapter 2

It felt like ages as Sidney sat the journey with only his thoughts. He pulled the flask from his breast pocket and began absently throwing back the contents as his mind wondered. He rifled through all the recent encounters with Young Stringer he could recall, there had been no sign. No mention of a wife. No mention of so much as seeing Charlotte-

He’d noticed at the cricket game and regata how the foreman had looked at Charlotte- but he’d never felt threatened by the other man. To him Stringer seemed a boy infatuated and… he’d been foolishly confident of Charlotte’s affection for himself. He kept seeing her face flash before him, reliving the moments he’d had with her. Everything from the kiss on the cliffside to berating her at the first ball in Sanditon. Sideny felt a crushing grip on his chest as he recalled the times he’d wounded her, pushed her away and had done his best to make her feel resented. He would have given anything to take those moments back. Anything to undo all the damage he’d done. It wasn’t long before Sidney tipped the flask back only to find it empty. He threw it angrily at the ground and rubbed at his temples. 

He needed to speak to Charlotte, what he would say he didn’t know. He just knew that he needed to see her…

The carriage came to a sudden halt and Sidney was on the verge of thundering at the man when he glanced out the window. The sky had darkened considerably and when he threw open the door fully he saw a modest home, overgrown with vines and stone stained black with ashes. There was a girl outside, pulling clothes off a line in the yard. She looked much younger than Charlotte but they had similar features and Sidney ventured the girl to be Charlotte’s sister. Though he couldn’t have even begun to guess at her name. 

“Is this the residence of Ms. Charlotte Heywood?” he stumbled slightly as he walked toward her, feeling the effects of the alcohol.

The younger woman seemed to open and close her mouth like a fish trying to breath out of water. “Eh.. W-whom, may I ask, are you sir?” 

“Forgive me,” He said, lifting his hat and giving a quick and impatient bow. “I am Mr. Parker. Charlotte vacationed in Sanditon as a guest of my brother and his wife last season.”

She raised her eyebrows, in a judging and very Charlotte manner. “You’re Sidney?” She asked quietly.

His heart fluttered and he didn’t know if it was because Charlotte had confided perhaps in some detail the nature of their relationship to her sister, or that the verdict was perhaps against him- if the look on the other girl’s face was any indication.

“I am.” He glanced back at the house impatiently. “May I speak with Charlotte?”

The young woman nodded after a moment, her expression changing to something he couldn’t quite place. “Wait here. I’ll send her out.”

Sidney bristled slightly at her tone though he knew he must seem very rude himself, showing up nearly drunk on a stranger’s doorstep and demanding to speak to a young woman. He couldn’t help it though. He flexed his hands at his sides as he began to pace, feeling as if with every moment that passed she was slipping further and further away.

His head snapped up as the door opened and his nerves fluttered to life as Charlotte stepped out. Sidney felt his heart stop as he comprehended the enormity of those six months having passed between them with no word- nothing but the proper goodbye. She was as lovely as he’d ever seen. Her soft brown curls were swept up and off her shoulders, a stray curl beginning to unfurl at her temple in the light breeze. She looked at him with those wide eyes of hers, like prey realizing it's been sighted. As if she were taking in everything she possibly could before the world around her completely shifted. It filled him with some joy he had to admit, that she still looked at him like that- as if she were just as enamoured of him as he was of her.

The air between them was painfully silent as she walked carefully to him, unable to pull herself out of his penetrating gaze- as if he were willing her toward him.

“Mr. Parker.” She said finally with a slow small curtsey, her heavy lashes fluttering low and the sight softened his heart for the briefest moment. Almost immediately though she looked back at him and her wide eyes were afraid and nervous, as if there was something she was keeping to herself. Though, for once, he knew what it was before she could even pretend to hide it. 

“Mrs. Stringer…” He did not bow and his voice dripped with contempt. Charlotte stepped back unintentionally,but it was as if she’d been physically pushed by his mere words. He’d spat the title out as an accusation and while her initial reaction was shame, as if she’d been the one to betray him… it was her trademark indignance that won out.

She looked at him then with defiance, “And what of Eliza, is  _ she  _ a Mrs. Parker yet?”

Sidney’s demeanor began to fall then and he shook his head before moving to step away, then almost immediately changing his mind, he turned on her again. “How could you be so naive, Charlotte?” He began again, accusatorily, and his words struck at her heart and pride like poisonous pincers. “To marry a man who could not so much as give you a home!” She bristled at the rising anger in his voice.

Charlotte glanced back at the windows of the house and saw Allsion watching them avidly. She turned back to Sidney with a pointed look and without a word she began to walk past him toward the line of trees some distance beyond them. It was a little glen, deep enough to afford them privacy and Charlotte marched toward them at a brisk pace. Her anger burning hotter with every step. She knew her sister meant well but Charlotte also knew her father would chase Sidney away with the shotgun if he gave the old man enough reason. Damning all gentility and hierarchy and any manners that even Sidney himself had foregone. 

Sidney had followed her gaze, even in his inebriated state. He understood immediately Charlotte’s intent and followed her wordlessly, his own steps pounding angrily into the ground as they went. As angry as he was he still knew it was a moment they needed to have in private. He practically ran behind her, his cane swinging at his side as she stomped toward the treeline. They’d only taken a few steps past the thick line of trees when she turned on him angrily. 

“You have no right to come here as though  _ I  _ betrayed  _ you _ !” She meant to stand her ground but Sidney’s steps didn’t falter even as she stopped and his face was inches from hers as he began to yell right back.

“How long Charlotte?!” He asked breathlessly, his face hot and his blood pulsing through him with a renewed vigor. “How long were you entertaining his affections while you played mine as well?! And then to be married so quickly, and in secret no less! Did you ruin yourself for him?!”

Charlotte flushed deeply and snapped her hand out to strike him across the cheek. He was fast though, years of athleticism and a general aptitude for getting into scrapes had made him quick. Sidney caught her wrist before it could connect, his large hand wrapping firmly around her small wrist. Charlotte was never one to back down and though he’d caught her first strike easily she quickly swung out with her other hand, connecting multiple times as he yanked her to him- nearly crushing her to his chest in an effort to subdue her. There was a brief moment as he held her that he was distantly aware of how close they were. He could feel her every ragged breath as her chest expanded into his. He could smell something sweet on her skin and see through the gauzy scrap of fabric tucked into her neckline. And he wondered if he leaned down to kiss her what he might taste…

Charlotte was still struggling against him however, and in his brief distraction she pulled herself loose and shoved him back angrily. Her dark eyes held him in a fury, too enraged by his words to show her hurt. “I was not the one to break a promise!” She yelled, her voice breaking. “I didn’t expect to have those feelings for  _ you  _ or  _ him _ !  _ You  _ broke  _ my  _ heart! I owe you no apologies or explanations for what came after.”

Charlotte wiped at her face quickly, not realizing the small tears that had slipped past. Her gaze flickered away before continuing. “Believe what you like of me, a whore or a ruined woman. James is my husband and-”

“Don’t.” Sidney ground out warningly, in that voice that could send chills down her spine and fluttering in the pit of her stomach.

She looked at him defiantly. “I love him.” She said anyway.

He shook his head and scoffed at her. “No you don’t...”

“Do not punish me for the choices you’ve made, Sidney!” She yelled, tired of his deflecting and attempts to make her the villain if not the half-wit. And she couldn’t have said which hurt her more.

At her words Sidney turned and charged at her. Charlotte tried to back away but she was met almost immediately by a tree pressing into her spine and Sidney was on her in seconds. She was caged between him and the tree, his hands grasping her shoulders tightly, almost bruisingly, she closed her eyes against his onslaught- fear taking hold of her as she braced her hands on his heaving chest. “And will you not stop punishing me!” He shouted, his hot breath raking over her skin. “I can think of nothing but you!... There is no spirit, no other joy or pain that can drive you from my heart... You are in my very soul!” Sidney pulled back one hand to tear at the collar of his shirt, pulling it open and yanking Charlotte’s hand to the spot over his heart. Charlotte could feel the warm skin under her hand and the firm pounding of his heart beneath. When she looked at Sidney’s face she hated how her own heart broke.

He was a man lost and defeated. Charlotte saw the glassy look in his eyes as he said low, no longer angry but indelibly devastated. “There is my heart… cut it out if you wish. It is yours, now and always.” He let go of the hand holding hers to stroke her hair, the brown curls slipping between his fingers like silk. “I am in perpetual agony without you… and now it is more than impossible…” The tears were streaming freely down her cheeks as her fingers flexed against his chest. 

She wasn’t ready either, she wasn’t ready for it to be over. Though it had hardly had a chance to begin… Charlotte loved James, she did. But what she felt for Sidney Parker… was something else entirely. It was as he had said, they were in each other’s very souls. As if they were so entangled and every time she tried to extricate herself, it felt as if she were stabbing into her own flesh- the more distance they tried to put between them was unadulterated agony. 

It felt as if they could not live without each other. 

When Charlotte looked up at Sidney again his head was hanging low to her, his eyes closed as he succumbed to the simple relief of no longer being apart. Her heart softened and in that moment she couldn’t stop herself as she reached up to him, guiding him down to her so that she could press her lips to his. Her touch was feather light as her hands cupped his face and he felt the soft curve of her mouth under his. Sidney for his part remained still as stone as she touched him, too afraid to move or speak… Afraid he would wake and again find it all to be nothing more than another dream. Another dream where she loved him too… missed him… wanted him as much as he wanted her. 

It was Charlotte who urged on. Her mouth opened under his and she sucked gently on his upper lip, running the tip of her tongue over the sensitive skin. Then, it was as if the levee inside Sidney finally broke. He captured her mouth with his, kissing her so fervently Charlotte felt a blush burning along every inch of her skin. As his tongue pressed into her she felt as if she were completely exposed.

Her mind became a jumble of lewd images as he kissed her. In her mind they were naked and wrapped in each others arms as he kissed her, the way he was kissing her now. Her body ached as his hands grabbed at her through her clothes, stopping only for a moment to rip away the cloth obscuring her neckline. His mouth moved temporarily to the exposed curves of her breasts as he yanked at her skirts to pull them up around her waist.

Charlotte gasped as Sidney’s hand cupped her intimately, his hand stroking gently until he could feel her wetness slipping over his fingers. “You’re so wet…” He mumbled against her neck, almost amazed. Charlotte’s knees buckled when she felt him slide his fingers just past the lips of her sex but Sidney held her tightly as he explored her with his fingers. He lifted his face to hers so he could watch the emotions play across her features as he touched her. Charlotte felt the scratch of his beard as his lips kissed along her cheek and jawline. 

Sidney let his fingers play over the soft folds of her sex, hot and slick as he ghosted over her clit and then down over her entrance. He felt himself harden as she whimpered quietly under his ministrations. Sidney shifted them so that one of her legs was between his, his throbbing erection pressed against her warm thigh while giving his hand more room to stroke between her legs. He didn’t care that he was rutting against her leg like an animal in heat, that they were outside- vulnerable to almost any interruption. He only knew that he might not get another chance, he would take what she would allow- any morsel she might acquiesce. 

Charlotte was lost in the feelings Sidney was evoking in her, she didn’t even realize she’d reached down to grasp at his wrist- trying desperately to get him to go faster. He remained steadfast however, his fingers only glancing over her most sensitive parts as he played with her. “Please…” She begged as he rubbed himself against her thigh.

“Tell me you love me…” He said, the gentle rumble of his voice shaking her to her core- more than his shouting ever had. 

Her mouth opened and then closed, and she shook her head in a small ‘no’. Sidney frowned and stilled for a moment, staring at her so intently she couldn’t look away. Suddenly his hand moved again and his fingers were on her clit, stroking hard and fast. Charlotte fell forward, her hand still on Sindey’s wrist and her nails biting sharply into the skin as he alternated between a barely-there caress and furiously stroking. He watched enraptured as the ecstacy played out on her face, chasing the high only to be halted before she could climax. “Say it.” He demanded, seeing the frustration furring her brow.

Tears pricked her eyes and she refused to look at him. “I can’t…” She said quietly.

Suddenly she felt him press a finger inside her, quickly followed by a second. His fingers were long and thick and she felt herself being pleasantly stretched by them as he thrust them in and out, his palm still moving against her clit as he did so. Charlotte knew she should be ashamed, embarrassed even as she rode his hand furiously. Her hips snapping to meet every angry thrust… She fisted her other hand in his coat, leaning forward she pressed her face into the soft fabric at his shoulder, biting into the fabric as she tried to stifle her own cries as she came hard against his hand.

Charlotte was trembling in his arms when he decided he could take no more. “If you won’t say it… I’ll make you feel it…” Sidney unlaced his breeches and pulled himself free. He was hard and dripping. Charlotte only had a moment to admire him before he was hooking his hand behind one of her knees, pulling it high almost to her chest and there was a brief almost excited panic as Charlotte struggled to catch her breath in the new position. 

He slid into her with ease and it was as if all the pieces of them, all the chaos they had become, suddenly quieted and fell together. When he had announced his intention to marry Eliza, there had materialized a vice-like grip around her heart that now, as he filled her body with his, seemed to relax and disappear. For all the world she couldn't deny it to herself anymore, the desire and affection she would always have for him. 

Sidney forced himself to remain still inside her. It wasn't just about the feeling of her body welcoming his, warm and soft and wanting him back. He wanted to keep her. In that moment they belonged to no one else but each other. It filled him with a sense of relief as he rested his face against hers, his nose filled with the scent of her and his body cradled in the soft curves of hers. There was no one else in the world who could calm that storm inside him... and set it ablaze all at once.

For Charlotte, however, the story was very different. 

She was the moth to his flame. While she had a loving husband whom she loved back, a life and a home- the very thought of Sidney Parker could have her throwing herself into his fires. Conceding to watching her whole world burn to the ground if only she could feel his love- no matter how it stung and destroyed. She loved him so deeply that she thought a marriage might forever barr the possibility of them being together. So that she could move on. So that they both could, and perhaps one day be happy for one another. Free of jealousy and betrayal and resentments.

But it seemed nothing could make that so. 

Sidney groaned when Charlotte rolled her hips, arching her body into his to urge him on. He opened his eyes to see her staring back at him, dazed and wanting. He was powerless to deny her. As he began to thrust into her he tried to hold her gaze, tried to keep her view on him. He watched avidly as every sensation played across her features and he reveled in the knowledge that it was because of him. Every ecstasy she was feeling was ignited by him. The wetness between her legs, the little whines of lust, the look on her face as she fell apart with his fingers inside her- it had all been because of him.

Before she could say anything back he captured her mouth with his and Charlotte felt consumed. James was sweet and loving, and she hated that when she dreamed of moments of this kind of intimacy it was almost always Sidney. She hated that in her heart she knew it wasn't lust or infatuation. It was how his vulnerabilities slipped through in the oddest of ways. Confessing his love and giving her no opportunity to reply, he was afraid of what she might say.

His desperate need to coax her body into succumbing to him- he was looking for a piece of her she knew. A piece he could lay his claim on. She knew because she felt the same way every time he said he loved her. She had that piece of him, his heart was hers and she felt the most confusing mixture of guilt and tenderness at keeping it in her possession.

Charlotte began to feel herself becoming undone, her hands fisted in his coat and she turned her head away- breaking the kiss. Her eyes clenched shut as she whimpered his name, his thrusts becoming hard and fast as her climax consumed her. Charlotte felt Sidney's hand clamp over her mouth suddenly, stifling cries she hadn't realized she'd been making. He continued to drive into her as a man possessed, chasing his own release. 

Charlotte felt so weak as her body still held him, but she forced herself to open her eyes. She wanted to see him as he came, to commit something to her memory. His face was buried in her shoulder however, and she couldn't see much beyond his cheek and broad shoulders. She didn't know what possessed her to do it but she ran her tongue along the palm that was still over her mouth and she reached up to pull his hand down just slightly. Enough to kiss his thumb before wrapping her mouth around it entirely, unsure what possessed her to do so. 

It sent Sidney over the edge. 

His back arched with two more crushing thrusts, his whole body spasming as he growled out his orgasm into the crook of her neck. Charlotte felt him virtually collapse into her, still pinned between the weight of him and the tree at her back. She didn't know how long they remained like that, or how either of them was still upright as their breathing slowed and evened back to normal. She wanted to pull him down into the soft grass with her, wrap herself in his strong arms and just sleep. 

There was a light twitter of birds overhead and a gentle sound of a breeze rustling the leaves. She was stroking Sidney's hair absentmindedly when he finally lifted his head. He didn't meet her gaze. Instead he kept his eyes downcast as he extricated himself from her. Her skirts simply fell back over her legs and with her mildly disheveled hair and flushed cheeks- she looked simply like a girl who'd been running through the woods. Only her swollen lips gave her away. She watched as Sidney righted himself in silence, buttoning his breeches and fixing his shirt. His lips were swollen too and around his wrist and just over the edge of his collar she saw little red half-moon welts. She blushed at the memory, her hands tucking into little fists at her sides. 

Sidney stared out into the glenn when he was done. Charlotte had barely moved, she could only watch him- wait to see if he'd had his fill of her. If he'd gotten what he'd wanted and was done with her. When he finally turned to look at her she instantly hated herself.

His eyes were rimmed red, and she could see the wetness on his cheeks. He looked at her, consumed with guilt and loss. He wanted to reach out and fix her hair for her, adjust her dress back for modesty. He was afraid though, what might happen if he touched her again. Would he lose himself again, more than he already had.

"When…" he began shakily, unsure what he wanted to say or how. He wanted to ask when she fell in love with Stringer, when and what made her decide she would marry him… when she said her vows had she thought of him at all- of them and what might have been. Sidney could not find the words and truthfully he knew they would only insult her, and he might see again the pain and resentment he had sowed in her. 

"I…" He began again, more carefully as he adjusted his jacket, unable to meet her gaze. "I know you will be returning to Sanditon soon, when your… husband… has settled your home." She remained silent and he couldn't see how she watched him with those wide and expectant eyes of hers. "I have taken the estate adjacent to my brother, Arthur, on the cliffside- far from town. And I am, we are, often in England as of late… what I mean to say is," He stumbled over his words. "I will not inflict my presence on you. I will leave you be… as best I can, if that is what you truly wish.”

Still she said nothing. She was so silent Sidney finally had to turn to see if she was indeed still there, if she’d understood his meaning. Charlotte was staring at the grass beneath her feet, focusing on the tiny white daisies scattered in thick little patches as she twisted her fingers together distractedly. 

“Do you wish me to leave?” He pressed, trying to keep the sadness out of his voice. 

Charlotte still did not move but after a moment she did speak, her voice soft and gentle- almost strained. “We made vows to other people… that can’t be undone.” She took a deep breath, forcing herself to continue. “What happened today, can never ever happen again… Sanditon is your home as well, and we may not remain there forever. James only wants to help rebuild and then he will again seek an apprenticeship to become a true architect…” She finally looked up to meet his dark eyes and tried to ignore the fluttering that filled her chest. “You needn't stay away, I still hope that in all this, we might find some semblance of a friendship.”

He nodded resolutely, reaching down to pick up his discarded hat and cane. He dusted the debris from his hat carefully, he would take whatever she might give him and be glad for it… He knew, despite his earlier words, that it was a kindness he did not deserve. “Will you forgive me?” He asked suddenly.

Charlotte did not know which deeds he was asking forgiveness for, or if all of them at once. She wondered briefly if she did forgive him for all his transgressions and then realized there could be no friendship or kindness between them if she did not. “I am not a victim, I know the part I played…”

Sidney donned his hat and began to walk away, back toward his carriage. Back toward the real world, to the fiance he did not love and to the life he felt trapped by. Suddenly, as he was about to pass back through the line of trees, she called out to him.

“Sidney?” He turned immediately at the sound of his name on her lips, a sound that would haunt his dreams and nightmares alike for the rest of his life. He waited at the edge of the glen, watching her with rapt attention. “I love you.” She breathed simply into the quiet air between them and the gentle breeze rustled the leaves overhead. A white noise filling his ears as her words sunk into his chest, pulling their warmth around his heart- hot and painful. 

“Always.” He declared quietly before turning on his heel and marching back through the tree to his carriage. Sidney couldn’t recall how long he’d been waiting to hear her say the words and mean them. And even in that moment, when he had what he wanted- he felt the painful sting of it. Of the circumstances. Of having what he wanted and never being able to hold it, to hold her… 

On the ride back to Sanditon he tortured himself with before, when he’d practically thrown her away. Dismissed and ridiculed her, endeavoring to rid himself of her. 

She was slipping away now, like smoke through his fingers. Unable to hold her or do more than watch her slowly leave him in the ether...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your lovely comments! I hope ya'll and enjoy and also heed the warning I placed in the summary cause I was not messing around. I will say people in the past have enjoyed being tortured by my writings, and if they haven't then they've been nice enough not to say it to my face :) 
> 
> This is still a Sidlotte story, the James parts and eventually the Eliza parts are just big parts of their story.

  
  
  
  
  
  


When he leaves, it's as if a spell is broken.

Charlotte waits until she can no longer hear the sounds of his horse and carriage before she rights herself and leaves the little glen. As she walks back toward the house the sun dips low and clouds, dark and grey, seem to swallow it whole. She feels disjointed and detached from herself. As if by making love to Sidney, no- somehow those words didn’t seem right. 

They were too soft, too kind for what had become of the affection between them. What existed there now was dark and sullen and melancholy. All the same, it was as if it had severed her into two beings, the part of herself that loved Sidney and the other that loved James. And, if she were being entirely honest with herself, she didn’t think she much liked either version of herself at that moment. 

Once the door closes behind her Allison follows her like a shadow. She was only a year younger than Charlotte but sometimes, they could be of the same mind. So much so that their mother often remarked they should have been twins. It wasn’t even that they were similar but more that where Charlotte could be headstrong and soft-hearted, Allison was calculating and slow to trust. Allison had not needed Charlotte to say anything, she only watched as her sister walked back into the house and up the stairs in an almost catatonic state. Allison had busied herself with running a bath while Charlotte had been outside for what felt like ages. She had intended it for herself but upon seeing her sister’s face as she pulled herself dejectedly up the stairs- she thought better.

Charlotte had entered the room soundlessly, Allison trailing behind, and collapsed into the window seat. Her expression far gone as she stared intently at the floorboards beneath her feet. Allison waited for her to speak, to give her time and space to process her feelings. Charlotte, however, remained silent so long she began to panic. “What happened, Charlotte? What did he come all this way to say?” As if suddenly realizing she were not alone Charlotte’s eyes snapped to meet her sister’s gaze. Her lips parted just slightly, inhaling as if she were about to speak. Instead of words or explanation or anything Allison could understand, Charlotte burst into tears.

“What has he done to you?! Did he hurt you?” Allison asked in a panic, falling to her knees at Charlotte’s feet. Charlotte kept her hand over her mouth but shook her head in a clear “no”. Allison stood again, cradling her sister’s head against her side and stroking her hair. She waited for the sobs to subside, and tried to sooth her sister. When Charlotte finally calmed down some she was able to coax her into the bath, hoping the water and warmth might calm her enough to speak coherently. She helped Charlotte undress and climb into the basin, though the boiling water had cooled some, it was still pleasantly hot against Charlotte’s skin- which until that moment had been cold and numb.

Allison did not immediately press her sister, instead she reached for the soap and cloth. Lathering it she meant wash Charlotte’s shoulders- that’s when she noticed the marks forming- to her horror. Red marks, already darkening to soft purples. Spots like fingerprints on either of her shoulders, a small circle at the crook of her neck and faint little scrapes across her shoulder blades. “Charlotte!” She gasped in horror. “What happened?!” 

Charlotte’s red rimmed eyes followed Allison’s gesturing to the marks on her shoulders specifically. 

“He didn’t hurt me.” She said urgently after what felt like an eon of silence, even though it wasn’t entirely the truth. Allison gave her an incredulous look, filled with disbelief and may even condescension. “It wasn’t his intention,” she conceded. “I swear.”

Allison grabbed the footstool from under the bed and sat it none-too-gently by the tub, eyeing her sister pointedly as she handed her the soapy rag. “Explain.” She said sternly, the “now” entirely silent. Charlotte took a deep breath and did as she was asked with one large omission. Charlotte told her of the conversation and that Sidney had kissed her passionately, then skipped immediately to his comments on her return to Sanditon and how she told him she also loved him still. 

Allison listened avidly, merging this new information with her own pre-existing feelings about Sidney Parker.

When Charlotte had returned from Sanditon with no husband and no promise of a match, her parents had not pressed her for details but Charlotte had revealed everything to her closest sister that night as they slept in the same bed. Allison had held her older sister as she’d cried over the havoc Sidney Parker had wrecked over her heart. If the tables had been turned Charlotte would have done her best to console and comfort and even right what she believed was wrong. Charlotte was a fixer, she could not leave things as they were if she thought they could be repaired or mended. She never gave up. Allison had only stroked her sister’s hair and held her hands, listening and allowing herself to simply be confided in.

Allison for her part had only been present for the storms Sidney caused and never the blinding brightness and strength he could bring Charlotte. Charlotte had done her best to extol Sidney’s many virtues and kindnesses, but for the time being they fell on deaf ears. 

“What will you do now?”

Charlotte looked at her sister a little petulantly before ducking entirely beneath the water’s surface. 

Allison rolled her eyes and muttered, “I don’t know what you expect that to do, you will have to breathe eventually.”

She watched patiently as Charlotte’s hands flexed on the sides of the tub, her head and body still submerged. Slowly and almost childlike, Charlotte eased her head back through the water’s surface until it rested just beneath her nose and she could breathe again while still eyeing an unperturbed Allison through thick wet lashes.

She stayed like that for a few minutes until Allison finally sighed and said, “You can’t hide in there forever. Whether you like it or not… this is adultery, Charlotte.” She whispered the last part with all seriousness, though she knew there was little chance of them being overheard. She gave Charlotte a worried look. “Do you still love James?” Her voice was hesitant, unsure what Charlotte’s answer might be.

Charlotte folded her arms along the basin’s edge and pressed her lips pensively to the wet skin of her arms, thinking about James. 

It had been nearly a month since she’d left Sanditon when James came back into her life. She knew she was becoming virtually unbearable to her family, living in a perpetual state of sadness and despair. She barely ate or spoke. It was as if she were a ghost in her own life. She missed Sidney all the time, he plagued her every hour of the day and simply waking or performing even the most menial of tasks struck her with heartache. 

She wrote him a dozen letters that she never sent, wondering everyday if she was making the right decision in severing their connection entirely. She’d read that in a book once, that time could heal the wounds that love indelibly left. She didn’t know if she truly believed that. It was more than that, it was as if Sidney had become a piece of her. A piece she couldn’t function without and everyday it was gone she fell further and further into disrepair… She longed for the day she could magically repair, find another way to function- or simply stop existing altogether.

And then James had appeared.

Out of the mist and back into her life. Proof that it hadn’t been a dream, a witness to her rise and fall come to torment her further- she’d thought… They spent most of the day walking and talking and when he left she realized she was smiling and that it felt as if a little bit of the weight was being lifted off her shoulders.

Charlotte began to look forward to his visits, and them as frequently as he could manage. Nearly every week, sometimes twice. He never forced his intentions or affections on her. He was so kind and sweet and gentle and when he came to her she slowly began to feel a familiar fluttering in her stomach. Eventually she began to miss him sincerely when he was gone and his presence was more than just a balm to the wound Sidney had left.

Even as she stared down at the thin gold band on her finger she was surprised her affections had blossomed in only a few months. Charlotte recalled then the conversation she’d had with Babbington about feelings changing in the space of a single day and how quickly she’d gone from hating Sidney to being so lovesick she’d felt utterly destroyed when he chose someone else. She sighed and rubbed tiny water droplets from the rings surface, seeing her own strained look in the thin reflection.

James had been sweet and caring and she could remember what it had felt like when he admitted to her that he knew she’d loved Sidney and that one never forgets a great love, as he suspected they were. Charlotte had felt briefly exposed and dangerously vulnerable, she thought that- save Georgiana and Allison- she’d hidden herself rather well. She’d looked away at his revelation, unable to meet his eyes for the shame of it. He’d taken her hand and begged her to look at him and when she finally did she felt a sudden remarkable sense of safety. He admitted also that he’d loved her all along and asked boldly if she thought she could ever hold that kind of affection for him, and if so would she ever consider calling him husband. 

Charlotte had not said yes immediately, he left with no answer but promised to return in a few days to give her time. He’d turned to leave, to mount his horse and ride away, and Charlotte found herself reaching out to him. He looked down at her concerned before she stretched up on the tips of her toes to reach him, to hold his face in her hands and press her lips to his. His arms wound around her, protective and strong.

It was as if the dark curtain had been lifted off the world and she could feel the coldness around her heart slipping away in the warmth of him. 

She’d said yes without another thought. Since that moment she’d lived in near perfect bliss. She missed James when he was gone back to Sanditon but she believed that when they would be living together as man and wife- they would have so much time to make up for. She looked forward to, daydreamed of taking care of their little home- perhaps find a way to help earn money for their life together. She even fantasized that when she eventually ran into Sidney, she would only feel the kind of fondness you felt for someone who had changed your life very long ago.

And then Sidney had appeared and it was as if no time had passed at all. She was right where she was back on those moors: choking back tears and trying desperately not to reach out and touch him. Caught between unbearable sadness and visceral anger. 

Charlotte twisted the ring around her finger, lost in her thoughts. 

“I love James.” She said finally, finally looking up at Allison. “He is my husband. There is simply nothing else to consider.”

Allison felt pity for her sister. Charlotte used to fawn over characters from her books, the ones who were meant for each other and could never manage to deny destiny… only to meet the most tragic ends. 

Allison knew the truth… there was no romance in ruin.

  
  
  
  
  
  


…………………………………………………………………………….

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It takes him time to remember to call her Mrs. Stringer instead of Miss Heywood. 

Though he still hadn’t moved past the pain of saying it, how it sliced at his insides everytime. 

He’d left Willingdon and upon his return home he spent several days at the brothel, drinking and altogether trying to drown himself in booze and bad company. He awoke to Tom and Arthur peeling him off the floor and dragging him to his home. 

It wasn’t until he sobered up, Tom slapping him awake, that he realized where he was and recalled everything that had happened. 

Charlotte was married to James Stringer. 

He would have a wife of his own in a matter of days.

He’d coerced her into an affair.

There was no turning back now.

Tom reminded him that Eliza would be returning from London the next day and that he needed to pull himself together. She returned in her usual fanfare with piles of clothes and trinkets and a small retinue of ladies who would make her return home bearable. This time they would also be present to help Eliza prepare for their nuptials.

They came in whirl winds of brightly dyed linens and clouds of perfume. He barely got in a few words of greeting before he decided to excuse himself to the other part of the house on the pretense of business. Though it wasn’t really a pretense, but more a better reason to be anywhere else at that moment. Sidney fled to his study and quickly began drafting letters.

The first went to a master architect in Paris asking him to come to their little seaside town for a year to mentor James Stringer. The man was a friend he’d encountered on a tour of China and the orient years before, a man he deeply respected and admired. He wrote that he would be in Paris soon with his new bride and would come personally to persuade him to take the job.

The second was a letter to secure a small peace of property just outside town. It was a little house he knew, but it would be enough for a young couple of little means. It was also much more suitable than the homes that had been set up for the working men. Sidney bristled at the idea of Charlotte having to make her home, her family, in such meager holdings. He thought of the cracked wood that framed the doors and the soot and grit that seemed to cling to the ladies hems. 

Sidney leaned back in his chair and swallowed hard. Pausing to ruminate on that last thought. Charlotte married a working class man. She would never truly be a lady until James made something of himself. Even then, everything she could be would have to be built from scratch. It would take years and toil and hardships he knew she'd never known before. 

He would accept the fate they’d been handed, but he would be damned if she ever went wanting.

The third letter he pens is much more difficult for him. It is to Charlotte herself.

There is no forward, he simply finds the words flowing from him in a way they had not ever managed to in person.

_I have never loved another as I have loved you. Nor shall I ever again. This affection, this heart, my very life- if I could give you anything else- is yours. If I believed fortune or fine objects meant anything to you at all, they would be yours without question. When I said I was my best self with you, what I meant is that you make me want to be better. Every decent act I have committed since we were first acquainted has been because of if not entirely for you. There is no sun, no brightness on this earth without you. Bidding you farewell, not once but twice, has left its own devastation in my soul. There is not a day that I do not think of the spark of your touch, the curl of your hair or the warmth of your smile. Even more I think, I miss the wit and sharpness of your mind. Everyday I long to speak with you. I dream of your voice: reciting Heraclitus, telling me the colors of the sea or even that you love me as I love you. I miss you. There is a calamitus ache in me that is only relieved by your presence._

_Take me as I am, however you will. If all you can offer me is friendship I will endeavor to do my best to never fail you again._

_Always, with love- SP_

  
  


Sidney reached for an envelope, his hand hovering over it hesitantly. He sighed heavily and folded the paper into a tiny square without the envelope. Instead he reached into his breast pocket for his billfold and tucked the letter behind the piece of receipt she’d scrawled.

_Very important… do not forget._

  
  
  
  
  
  


…………………………………………………………………………….

  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  


The day before his wedding is when he goes to James, offering the other man his dreams and future on a silver platter. He tells the foreman that he has hired a master architect to help in the rebuilding of Sanditon as well as to become his mentor. 

“I have also set aside a small place for you and your new wife. It is modest but I believe you may find it more amenable for a young couple.” He adds before Stringer can even finish saying ‘thank you’. His aim is to seem as detached as he possibly can, feigning a purely business approach. However, instead of a litany of praises- James' face falls into one of misgivings.

“It is too much, Sir. I cannot accept such a gift.”

“It isn’t a gift.” Sidney said without looking up from the papers on his desk. He can’t look at James. At Charlotte’s husband, at the man who took her away. “I am investing in you.”

“As appreciative as I am of your confidence… making a home for my wife and family is something I believe a man should do for himself.”

At that Sidney’s quill ceased its scribbling and he turned finally to look Young Stringer in the eye, the younger man clearly determined in his refusal. And Sidney knew he must persevere, for Charlotte’s sake. She would have children one day, even if they weren’t his, he needed to know he’d done all he could to make sure she never went wanting. “Do not mistake that I offer these as gifts nor are they free. You have worked for them, I have seen it. My brothers have seen it, and soon your mentor will too. I am endeavoring to make my family’s dream of what Sanditon can be a reality. Now, you are very much a part of that plan- should you accept.”

James sighed and closed his eyes briefly, as if fighting with himself on whether or not he should press on with his apprehension. “I cannot accept because I cannot owe you Mr. Parker. I cannot create a debt to you I may never be able to fully repay… I know of the affections you once held for Charlotte.”

Sidney gives him a hard look. “I am to be married tomorrow, Sir.”

“That has not stopped greater men.” James’ voice was grave and his implication clear- he did not trust Sidney to not use him to get to Charlotte. 

The sun coming through the window set him alight, his golden hair and blue eyes, even though his clothes were worn and he was clearly a working man- somehow Sidney felt the disparity between them distinctly. James, even in his limited means, could give Charlotte things he couldn’t. He remembered it wasn’t just her situation he couldn’t undo, it was his own. Looking at the other man now he could see what appeal he might have to her. He was altogether uncomplicated, handsome and he clearly adored her. For the first time in his life, Sidney felt utterly deficient. 

“I won’t do you the disservice of lying to you, that I hold a deep affection for Charlotte… That is why I’m helping. Not by handing things to you, but by opening doors it would take years for you to open yourself. All the while she would struggle, because you would. Charlotte has offered me friendship and in turn I’m extending that to you. I want to do the honorable thing, I have not done so in the past... You would be my tenants, yes, but you have my word I will not use it to my advantage. I understand wanting to build something on your own, now you can- with tools that would have been readily available to a man of means.” He took a deep breath. “The only difference is that I know you will not squander them, because you will know exactly what they mean.”

James considered his words carefully and for a moment Sidney did not believe he had won him over. “You have never done wrong by me, Sir. And when others had… I know you stepped in to right them.” He extended his hand out and Sidney shook it, feeling a dull kind of triumph.

  
  
  
  
  
  


…………………………………………………………………………….

  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  


He is gone with his new wife when she returns to Sanditon.

Charlotte found herself both relieved by his absence and the desire to at the very least see him. She had not been invited to his wedding, and she wouldn’t have made an appearance anyway. It would give Eliza too much opportunity to prove to Charlotte all the ways that she had won, and a torture Charlotte would have inflicted on herself by knowing what she, what they both, had done. And that there were no winners.

James does not lie to her about the things Sidney had done for them. It is another reason she knows that she does not deserve him. She assures James that her heart is with him and he does not press her.

The house is just beyond the town, a lovely little cottage on a small acreage of land. She nearly cries when she sees it, tucked neatly on a cliffside surrounded by a little garden. The sound of the ocean fills her ears and when she turns to see James behind her he is beaming in the sunshine, “Do you like it?”

She leaps into his arms, laughing as he swings her around in his arms. She doesn’t tell him that she could not have dreamed of a happier home, only holds onto him as tightly as she can. Even as she can feel his own laughter rumbling against her- she thinks distantly of Sidney Parker. As she clutches her fingers in James’ coat, she imagines stroking Sidney’s face. Feeling the scratch of his stubble and seeing that rare and radiant smile melt into his features. She imagines what it would be like to see that cloud lift off him, to see those deep black eyes become warm and loving…

Charlotte hated herself, but she knew that for the rest of her life- buried beneath all the happinesses- she would be missing Sidney.

He is gone for longer than she expects. It is through Georgiana that she finds he and Eliza have turned their honeymoon into an excursion of Europe. It gives herself time to assimilate back into Sanditon. It is hardly recognizable to her now and James takes it upon himself to give her a tour of the masterpieces he helped to create and design. She is also grateful for the mentor Sidney sends. He is an interesting man and she enjoys watching James learn from him, the excitement and interest they had for architecture. 

It is a relief to see her husband so happy and content, she finds that it makes her feel at rest too. Her life becomes so calm and exceedingly normal she often has to wonder if it is real at all. She becomes accustomed to running her own home and even takes pleasure in learning to maintain her little garden. Though instead of flowers she finds herself riveted in the cultivation of herbs and the properties they provide. Her time is spent between maintaining her home, reading and caring for her garden. It is however the sea that seems to occupy her most. 

Once James leaves in the mornings she will often wander straight down the path behind her little home to the little piece of beach just below. She spends every day exploring it, collecting shells and sea glass and sometimes walking straight into the cool calm water in her morning clothes. Her favorite discovery is a little alcove. It is shallow and small but filled with small tide pools that she loses herself in for hours, watching them like tiny colorful little worlds filled with creatures she couldn’t have imagined could be so small.

She goes down to the water every morning. At first because it is like a sacred place to her. It isn’t until Mary Parker comes by to take tea with her one afternoon that they go for a walk to her little stretch of beach with its crystaline waters and powderlike sand. Mary points out in surprise that she can see part of Sidney’s estate from where they stood. Charlotte is taken aback by the information, though there were two other nearby homes she was also in clear view of. She tries to stamp down the suspicion that his proximity was intentional. In fact it was only a back portion of their home that she could see, a terrace and window slightly obscured by creeping foliage. It was also only visible from the small stretch of beach, the distance and rolling landscape entirely concealed her home from his.

Though it hardly mattered as his holiday with his new wife seemed to stretch longer and longer. And when Eliza finally did return, it was without Sidney as reported to her by both Mary and Georgiana. He doesn’t turn up for some weeks after and it takes her completely by surprise.


	4. Chapter 4

Charlotte was walking in town one morning, running errands as she did every few days. Often though she was likely to be found spending most of her time in a tiny print shop that had not been there during her first visit to Sanditon. The contents were miniscule at best in things that piqued her interest and the shop owner got to know her well enough that he would set something particular aside for her from time to time. 

It was always her last stop before retyrning home. No sooner hard Charlotte’s fingers grasped the door handle, her arms heavy with vegetables and linen, when a voice came from behind her, “Good morning, Mrs. Stringer.”

Her eyes prickled as she turned slowly and she nearly dropped her purchases when her eyes met his. It was Sidney, in his fine waist coat and top hat towering over her and bearing down on her with those endless dark eyes of his. 

Her whole body tensed immediately, and she had to fight the urge to not only drop everything but to throw her arms around him and hold him tightly. Instead her aching hands clenched into fists until she was sure her hidden hands had white knuckles and her nails were biting red marks into her itching palms. Anything to keep herself from touching him, or letting him touch her. 

She can only stare up at him speechless, lost in his gaze as he stared openly back at her- not moving or speaking either. 

They’re drawn from their reverie when a boy excuses himself and squeezes past them to enter the print shop behind her. Charlotte apologizes and steps aside, bumping into Sidney as he also attempts to move out of the boy's way. His hand unconsciously reaches out to steady her. She’s caught off guard by his hand as it slides over her side and across her ribcage. It was a fairly innocent touch but it felt as if he’d reached through the thin fabrics of her dress and she recalled vividly what his fingers felt like on her bare skin. Like a flash she was back in the glenn, her skirts around her waist and Sidney’s hand…

She nearly jumped out of her skin and practically leaped away from Sidney. Charlotte felt instantly guilty when she saw his face riddled with guilt and rejection, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-” He began but she cut him off, adjusting the items in her arms more comfortably.

“No no, I know. I’m just-” She looked away, trying to gather herself and suddenly she smiled. “I’m just being ridiculous.” She muttered quietly.

“I only came over to see… to ask how you are. Are you settled?” He asked politely. 

She nodded but suddenly he was grabbing her bags from her arms. “What are you doing?” She called after him but he continued to walk away from her toward his carriage, putting the items inside as he waited for her to catch up with him. She repeated her question once again after he was done. 

“I’m taking you back to your home, the day is hot and the walk is far. No arguing.”

“Sidney,” Charlotte began hesitantly and glancing around warily, but no one was paying them any mind. “I can’t.”

He looked at her with a small smile. “I should like to see what this friendship business is all about.” He said and she was surprised by his playfulness. Sidney was so often the brooding sort, even when he was happy there was a touch of darkness that seemed to always be looming at his back. Charlotte considered him for a moment, lerry of the situation she might be walking into before finally letting him help her into the seat beside him. 

It was a little carriage, one of the newer types fashioned for two or three people and allowed one of the occupants to guide the horse at the front. There was also a cover that could be put up for poor weather or privacy, but Sidney left it down and she knew why. It was for her sake, so that they would be in full view of any passerby. So no one could mistake them for being anything but travel companions.

He tugs at the reins gently and they begin moving at a casual pace, as the silence fills between she thinks distractedly that she could have walked faster than they were moving now. Somewhere deep down she knows she doesn’t want that, more than anything this whole time that he’s been gone, she’s longed to be in his presence again. Charlotte chances a glance at him, only to see that he was staring almost determinedly at the road ahead. 

“You didn’t answer my question before, are you settled in your new home?” His deep voice breaches her thoughts and she has to gather her thoughts for moment.

She smiled just thinking of it. “It is lovely. Lovelier than I had even hoped. I meant to write you a letter to thank you for all the generosity you’ve shown us, but according to Tom your holiday was rather widespread. I didn’t know where to send the letter…” She twisted the ring on her finger almost habitually. “How was your holiday with Eliza?”

“Amicable.” He said simply with that succinct tightness that was typical of him when he didn’t want to elaborate or speak anymore on a subject. 

“You do not hide your feelings well Mr. Parker.” She said with a small laugh. “And still you always feel miles away.”

Sidney looked at her then, still controlling the reins as he considered her. “I am always with you Charlotte.” He said as simply as if he were saying ‘hello’. As though he were surprised she still didn’t understand that, after all that had passed between them. 

She wanted to say that she felt the same. Not even that she was always with him, but that wherever she felt she carried him with her like a string on her finger or a ribbon around her neck. He was a piece that not only was she keeping with her, she now refused to release. Later on in life she would wonder if that was why it was so doomed between them, that their love was so all consuming- it was tainted with selfishness and sometimes malice. Instead she said, “I love being so close to the ocean. When James said he was fixing his apartment in town, I must admit I was most excited that I would be living so close to the sea… I had no idea the plans fate would have.”

“I thought I would always hate the sea after Antigua. Everything there is sweltering all the time, even the water seems to boil… Then Tom forced me into the waters here and now, she is like an old friend I didn’t know I had.”

“How do you mean?”

“I suppose I feel like she is a woman as complex as you, she can spurn and torture with the best of them.” He turns to smile at her, a genuine and radiant smile. “Sometimes I feel I could drown in her embrace. Other times I feel as if my very soul is cleansed and she soothes my mind.” 

“That is lovely, Sidney.” She says quietly, truly in awe. “You could be a writer.”

He shakes his head. “I haven't your patience."

"You mistake me, I have burnt nearly every loaf of bread since managing my own home. James has been kind enough not to mention it." She paused as he let out a bold laugh. She neglects to mention that now she gets their bread from town. James fixed the bakers' door one night on his way home, and instead of accepting payment he asked for a line of credit on bread. It was one of their more interesting marital stories that more often incited a laugh or two from her audience. But to tell Sidney that small piece would be to shake the fragile boat they sailed on after finally finding calm waters.

When they reach her home she has to stop him from trying to help her inside. Charlotte looks up at him meaningfully, hoping he will understand. And he does, though it doesn't stop him from snatching up her hand before she can turn away again. He lifts it to his lips, his mouth lingering to run gently over her fingers. To a passerby it would seem entirely innocuous, a formal parting.

Sidney however locked eyes with her, his dark lashes lending to the beauty of him as he watched her and pressed his lips to her skin longer than he should have. A shiver ran down her spine and she made to lull her hand back, a little angry with him. His hand flexed around hers though before finally letting go.

Charlotte could feel the flush on her skin. He knew what he was doing, and the fact that her body was so sensitive to him- she wanted to be angry with him… But she couldn't, not entirely. The small interaction had made her heart leap out of her chest and she felt breathless all at once.

The real crime, she felt, was hers. 

She'd enjoyed it. 


	5. Chapter 5

It was like slowly getting closer and closer to the edge of the cliffs. 

The water could catch her, but she had no idea if it would carry her off to safety or drown her in its murky depths.

For his part at least, Sidney does his best to stay away as much as he can. He is only ever in Sanditon for a week or two at a time, sometimes only a few days. He finds reasons to travel to London and Paris, building the business that will give Sanditon a solid foundation so that a tragedy like the fire will never devastate it. It always made her smile to think about how sensible he could be, how it balanced him against his siblings. She thought about her own siblings and while she loved them all, she only had a close relationship with Allison. The others were often gone, the boys to apprenticeships or working with her father. The girls were all still very young besides she and Allison, practically all babies. 

Now that she lived as far away as she did, she wondered how long it would be before she saw them again. She did write to Allison often who promised she would come to visit Charlotte in the summer, which was still more than six months away. 

She looked up suddenly to see James staring at her and smiling. Watching her while she was peeling potatoes. “What are you smiling at?” She said coyly.

“Just admiring a work of art…” 

She smirked, loving the lilt of his voice and the way he walked over to stand behind her. His arms wound around her waist and he rested his chin on her shoulder. “Your hair has gotten so long.” He said offhandedly, twisting a curl that in fact hung nearly to her hips. 

Charlotte glanced down and realized he was right. “Oh, how strange… I hadn’t even noticed.”

“It looks beautiful.” He says nuzzling her cheek with his nose. “Mr. Mourant showed me sketches of statues he studied in Greece. Goddesses with hair like yours-” Mourant was the Master architect Sidney had secured for James, and everyday James seemed more and more enthusiastic about the partnership. Charlotte was grateful to Sidney for so many things, but sometimes Mr. Mourant felt paramount above all those things. It eased the guilt she felt, to see James so happy. 

“This had better be purely academic study.” She chided playfully, knowing that those statues were more often exposed if not entirely nude. James assured her no one could hold a candle to her and she turned to kiss him deeply before they stumbled clumsily toward their bedroom.

Effectively clearing Sidney from her mind for the time being.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

“Have you ever been to Greece?” 

Sidney looked over at her in surprise, her question seemingly coming from nowhere. He goes on to talk about the two times he had been there. Describing first and foremost the remarkable architecture. They were walking side by side on the beach, Mary and Tom walking ahead of them while the children ran circles near the water's edge. A basket of breads and cheeses bumped against her knees as she lost herself in the sound of Sidney’s voice and his description.

Mary had invited Charlotte to join them for a picnic on the beach, intending to let Charlotte see the children again and also to let the younger girl know that despite her new circumstances- Mary was determined not to let her fall out of society. Sidney had come of his own volition and when asked where his wife might be he said only that she was otherwise occupied and so they left it alone.

Sidney never spoke of Eliza. So much so that sometimes Charlotte found herself forgetting the other woman existed at all. Charlotte couldn’t help but slip every now and then, mentioning James to Sidney though she almost always regretted it as a shadow came over his features. It was more difficult for her however, because both men worked together but thinking about that always made her stomach twist with guilt and she would have to force herself to think of something else. 

Tom and Sidney pulled a blanket across the sand as Charlotte helped Mary unearth the foods from the basket. The children had other ideas as they reached for Charlotte and pulled her off to chase the waves with them. She excused herself and promised to return shortly. 

Sidney plopped himself down across from Mary and Tom and watched distractedly as Charlotte lost her bonnet running away from the children. She expertly feigned a chase and the children would shriek with delight as they nearly caught her, their chubby fingers flicking at the edges of her skirts as they tried to capture her. She wore a pale green dress, the color of cloudy seaglass and her beautiful hair- now down to her waist- was gathered at the nape of her neck and pulled to cascade over her shoulder. It swung in the wind as she ran and he remembered burying his hands in it when they’d been in the glenn. He was so enraptured by the sight he hadn’t even heard his brother asking about Eliza until he was struck in the chest by a cube of cheese. 

He turned to see his brother laughing but was caught off guard at the look Mary was giving him. It was so honest he stopped breathing for a moment as their eyes met. She looked so sad for him, it was then that he knew he had not hid himself well at all. That simply because his siblings were obtuse, it did not mean everyone was. Sidney looked away from her a little ashamed, and began answering Tom’s barrage of questions- mostly about Eliza.

The truth was, things were relatively fine with Eliza. Their honeymoon had given them a chance to reconnect, though it hadn’t done anything to truly rekindle those feelings of love he had when he was younger. She was so consumed by vanity and society that sometimes he had to restrain himself from being his true self and making a snide comment. The truth was they functioned best in social settings, where they were both plied with liquor and surrounded by other members of society who were just as frivolous. 

She had come to despise Sanditon much less since the town had grown and society was bringing itself to her. Still they were not much more than companions. Even when they made love, there was little affection. Though it wasn’t for lack of trying on her part. His mind almost always wandered to Charlotte. When he struggled to reach his climax he would let her invade his mind. He’d imagine guiding her body over his, feeling her soft curves under his hands and the messy array of her chocolate colored colors spilling around their faces like a curtain as she’d leaned down to kiss him…

He wanted to invest himself in his marriage with Eliza, he knew that he should… but everytime he tried he could only truly think about what it was he truly wanted.

Charlotte came walking over to them, her breathing labored as the sun finally began to descend behind a blanket of clouds. They began to talk happily, Tom and Mary both prying questions about her new life with James as they passed around little napkins of breads and cheeses and meats. Tom made to pull something from the basket but Charlotte never saw what it was. The scent hit her first. Her stomach rolled and she shot up to her feet. She hastily excused herself as he hand flew over her mouth and she darted away.

She didn’t know where she was going, simply that she had to get as far away as her feet would carry her. Charlotte pitched forward toward a pile of large stones by the water's edge and emptied the contents of her stomach. She wretched so violently she didn’t realize someone was sliding her hair from off her shoulders and rubbing her back. It was Mary she realized some minutes later, the older woman speaking in soft soothing tones as Charlotte spilled every last thing that could have possibly been in her stomach.

Sidney had tried to follow Charlotte but Mary had held her hand out to hold him back as she went after Charlotte herself. Sidney paced impatiently behind as Mary tried to soothe Charlotte. When Charlotte was finally able to stand upright, she barely glanced Sidney’s worried face as she flushed with embarrassment. He strode over quickly, his hands flying to her face, “Are you alright?”

Charlotte nodded her head, eyes closed as she tried to catch her breath. “Yes, I think I might be ill. I was sick yesterday as well but..” She took a deep breath. “It passed so quickly, I thought it was done. I must have eaten something poor-” She stopped mid sentence, her eyes flying open a little panickedly. Before she could stop herself she wondered aloud if James was alright.

“Well, I suppose we’ll know soon enough. Come on dear, let’s get you back up to the house.”

“Perhaps I should carry you.” Sidney said and his hand moved to her shoulder, ready to lift her small frame into his arms. Charlotte placed her hand over his and shook her head insistently.

“I am perfectly fine to walk, the house is only paces away.”

“I will walk with her, perhaps you could go ahead and call for the physician?” Mary suggested to Sidney, hooking her arm around Charlotte. 

“No, that won’t be necessary.” However, she had barely gotten the words out before Sidney was running briskly up the path ahead of them to his horse. She wanted to laugh but she felt a creeping worry, though for what she couldn’t have said. 

She barely heard Tom mutter behind them about staying behind with the children and Mary called back dismissively, “Yes, you do that dear.”

Charlotte laughed and halfway up the path she began to insist again that she was fine. Mary let her ramble on the rest of the way until they were nearly to the house. She stopped in her tracks so suddenly that Charlotte was jerked back a little and she looked at Mary concerned. 

“When you were ill the other day, had you been cooking or preparing something.”

Charlotte looked perplexed before admitting she had been preparing a ham and vegetables for dinner. Mary smiled knowingly, “That was a pork pie Tom was taking out of the basket before… I thought your face was looking a little fuller since I saw you last.”

Charlotte shook her head still confused. “I don’t understand.” She laughed nervously and waited for Mary to explain. 

“Well, I’m no doctor but I have been through this four times myself. Charlotte, darling, I believe you might be with child.”

The words echoed in Charlotte’s head and she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. Her hands released Mary and went to her own abdomen. “May I?” Mary asked, gesturing to Charlotte’s stomach. Charlotte nodded automatically, still unable to fully process the information. 

Mary gentled pushed Charlotte’s hands aside and she began to softly prod her fingers around Charlotte’s stomach and waist. She smiled and said, “I would say you’re still fairly early, perhaps somewhere in your second month. Feel the curve, there?” Charlotte’s hands followed Mary’s guidance over her stomach and sure enough she felt the slightest curve. It was then, as a tear rolled down her cheek that she realized she was smiling. “We’ll wait for the doctor to confirm it, but I’m fairly sure myself. With the first two I couldn’t abide the smell of fish and with the second, it was virtually anything. With the last it was poultry.” She raised her eyebrows and wrinkled her nose as she relived the vivid experience briefly in her memory. “Let’s get you inside.”

Charlotte nodded in agreement and let herself be corralled into the house and into her bed. Mary helped her off with her shoes, and helped her change into her bedclothes. Then she tucked Charlotte into the sheets. It was odd because it made Charlotte feel again a bit like a child- even though she realized she may in fact be carrying one… “Please don’t tell anyone.” She said suddenly, looking up at Mary with a worried expression. “I only mean… if it is true. I wish to tell James myself.”

Mary nodded knowingly and patted Charlotte’s hand before leaving the room and the younger girl alone with her thoughts. Charlotte waited for the quiet click of the door before sliding the tightly tucked bedclothes down so that she could flatten her dressing gown across her stomach, admiring again the very subtle curve there. Pregnancy hadn’t been on her mind since she’d bid her mother farewell and the older woman had muttered it like a blessing as she’d hugged her tightly. 

Her mother had been pregnant plenty when she was younger and Charlotte knew she should have recognized the signs but- it still all seemed so unbelievable. She thought about the baby growing inside her and she hated herself for being comforted by the fact that it could not be Sidney’s. That would have been a cruelty she didn’t think she could have stood to inflict on him. To have another man raise his child, to never truly be a father to it himself. 

It was better this way, she knew. 

For a moment she did let her mind wander, to what it would be like to have a family with Sidney. They would have at least four children she knew. Both she and Sidney had talked fondly about being a part of big families- she knew they would both want that for their children. He would be the sensible one as always, teaching them the skills that would help them survive in the world. She could be the one to nurture their imaginations, to read to them about fantasy and history- her favorite poems. They would have little picnics and Sidney would teach the children to swim as strongly as him…

She was pulled from her thoughts by a gentle knocking on the door and she briefly met Sidney’s worried gaze through the space as the doctor shuffled in.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: To answer a few common questions and general wonderings. I write as often as I can, I am in an essential field right now that is very labor intensive so I work 40+ hr weeks and when I'm not working I am beyond exhausted not to mention other commitments I have. The story won't be much longer, I don't think. As stated before I have certain points that I want the story to hit and there will be however many chapters it takes to cover those 'events' in the story. Lastly, I'm really bad with proofreading my own work and managing chronology so forgive if you spot a mistake, I tried to keep everything in line but I won't rule out that I might have left something conflicting. If I do let me know so I can fix it in revisions when the story is completed. Thank you all for sticking with me as long as you have and to everyone who has taken the time to comment. I do read every single one, however I only have time to respond to those with questions.
> 
> _________________________________________________________

He felt like a caged animal, pacing back and forth and ready to tear the limbs off anyone who didn’t approach him carefully. Sidney felt like he was losing his mind as the doctor took his time examining Charlotte.

“Sidney, I swear to you, I believe she is perfectly fine.” Mary was one of the few people Sidney had the utmost respect for, and therefore did not shout back that she was not a doctor and could not possibly know for sure. Instead he rubbed his face with his hands and muttered how he should have carried her back no matter what anyone said. He would have done it for a stranger, it should not have mattered that it was Charlotte now. 

The door to her room finally opened and the doctor came bustling out with a smile on his face, “All is well.” He called out to the room and no one in particular. “She’ll just need a little rest, and perhaps stay away from anything that was once a pig.” He said with a little chuckle. Before Sidney could begin to interrogate the old man on what he was rambling about, he gestured to the door and told Sidney that he was being asked for.

Sidney, no longer concerned with the impressions of others, barreled into the room and closed the door behind him. The sun cast a golden hue on the room, illuminating Charlotte as she sat propped up on her bed. Little motes of dust danced between them as he stood by the door, her wide brown eyes looking at him worriedly. Everyone was looking at him like that now he thought distractedly, he wished people would stop looking at him like that. He wished Charlotte would stop looking at him like that, with that furrow in her brow and her lips parted just slightly as if she didn’t want to be saying what she knew she must.

“Well?” He asked impatiently.

Charlotte patted the edge of the bed beside her, encouraging him to come sit. Sidney followed her instruction with caution, careful not to jostle the bed as he sat beside her. They hadn’t been this close in a long time, he thought. She took his hands in hers and she ran her fingers soothingly over his, her nails tracing the skin over the bones. His hands were not work-roughened like James’ but he had his own scars to be sure. 

She had a dream once like this. In the dream she had been much happier, much more thrilled with delivering the news that she would soon be a mother. But in the dream she was telling Sidney, her Sidney, that he would be a father and they would both be happy… Never in wildest dreams did she think it would happen as it was in that moment, taking comfort in how Sidney let her stroke his hands. Letting her take this intimacy from him, knowing the closer they let themselves become the harder it would be for them both as they trudged on through life in their more respectable roles. She let herself be selfish for a moment longer, however, enjoying the weight of Sidney’s large hands in hers. Thinking about how it was her dream to live her life in those warm strong hands. 

Sidney leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers. “Please, tell me what is going on…” He said softly.

“Sidney,” She stopped, unsure what words might hurt him least. “I am with child.”

Sidney pulled back a little to meet her gaze. He was already smiling and his heart nearly jumped out of his chest, until he saw the hard look on her face and she gave the smallest shake of her head. He let out a simple, “Oh.”

“The doctor said it is very early, Mary nearly hit the nail on the head.” 

“How do you mean?”

“Mary suspected it was a pregnancy on the beach… she surmised I was in my second month and the doctor said much the same.” She cut her teeth along her lower lip, trying to give Sidney time to adjust to the news. They hadn’t been together since he had come to Willingdon, and that was some time ago. 

Still Sidney could not help the sinking feeling in his body, as if he were in the sea and a weight tied to his feet- dragging him down. He looked at Charlotte’s face, pulling one of his hands from her to stroke her cheek and comb back the softer curls at her temple. “I should leave…” he said as he stood up. 

At his words, fat tears rolled down Charlotte’s cheeks and her hands clutched at his. She said nothing, only refused to let go. “I cannot bear this…” He said through gritted teeth, trying not to become so emotional as well. He leaned down as she continued to hold him, pressing his lips to the top of her head. He inhaled deeply, letting her scent fill his memory. 

In that moment, everything felt… heavy. His body, his breaths, his love for Charlotte most of all. Heavy things weren’t meant to be carried forever, he knew. He also knew that, to the very core of him, he’d never be able to let her go. Not the way that they both needed to. However, he decided it was necessary to put it down. At least for a while. He thought of Eliza, waiting back at their home for him- hadn’t she been trying? Trying to reignite what they used to have? He would never love her as he had before, he could never see her again how she was nor did he really want to. He also knew that there was nothing Charlotte could do, not even fulfilling her duties as a wife to someone else, that would ever make him love her less.

He took another deep breath, inhaling her scent once more, clutching her wrists in his hands to keep her from trying to hold him again. The cruelties she didn’t know she inflicted, simply through loving him back…  
“I’ll come back to you, I promise.” He said, muffled against her hair. 

Sidney gently and carefully pushed her back from him. He then turned on his heel and left, leaving Charlotte to bury her face in her hands and cry.


	7. Chapter 7

.

The sand is cold between her toes and she smiles as she feels a soft kind of skittering in her stomach. Charlotte chases the touch with her hand, imaging the tiny feet of the baby she’d come to love so much. The icy water came rushing up around her ankles making her shiver and again came another kick. 

“I can’t tell if the kicking means he likes the cold water or doesn’t.” Allison seems to perk up at her side. Their arms were hooked through each other and Charlotte felt her sister cringe and stiffen every time the receded waters built up to come rushing back toward them. 

“I definitely don’t care for it.” Allison pouted and then scrunched her eyebrows. “There’s no proof it's a boy, I don’t care what mother says.”

Charlotte laughed. “James thinks it will be a boy as well.”

“Men always think it will be a boy. Good Lord!” Allison shouted and released Charlotte, having had enough of the icy water she ran several paces back into the drier sand. Charlotte smiled but didn’t go after her. Instead she held her arms up, as if she were a bird with wings, allowing the cool gusts of wind to whip through her clothes and comb through her heavy hair. 

Eventually satisfied, Charlotte turned around and walked back toward where Allison had plopped herself down in the sand. She held out a hand to help Charlotte steady herself as she also eased down into the soft sand beside her sister. They sat in silence for a few minutes, Charlotte absently stroking her swollen belly. She thought about the dress sitting in her home that Allison had made. In fact it was one of her older ones that Allison had adjusted to accommodate her protruding stomach as well as removing many ruffles and changing the puffed sleeves to a french style she’d seen an advertisement in the hat shop. They were now fitted to her elbows and then flared out to lace.

Lace that Sidney had sent from Italy. 

She told James she had found it in town and that she and Allison hadn’t been able to resist. In truth a parcel had arrived one morning with no letter, only a scrap of paper where he’d scribbled his initials. That was Sidney’s nature she’d come to know, he could only ever say things outright when he was angry. Every other emotion, especially love, he held so close until it came forth in the most confusing ways. Somehow, it made her feel honored to be someone he had let so fully into his heart they both knew what he meant even when he said nothing at all. 

Allison had picked up the lace, holding it up to the light to examine it, causing her to realize something had been wrapped in it. A small thin book had slid out onto the table. It had been an english translation of roman mythos. Allison had quirked an eyebrow as Charlotte cradled the book, her fingers stroking the pages as if it were so much finer than the lace- which upon further inspection she concluded was very expensive. “Yes, that is more you isn’t it?” Allison had said to Charlotte who did not hear.

“Has he written since the last?” Allison inquired, interrupting Charlotte’s thoughts.

Charlotte shook her head. After she’d confessed she was expecting James’ child, Sidney hadn’t just left her home. He’d picked up Eliza and left Sanditon for it seemed another extended holiday. Tom had come to her the following day, explaining how Sidney had left so abruptly and how distressed he was by it. It unnerved her to see Tom so out of sorts, even more so when he asked if she could again help him keep up with the work Sidney had left behind.

James had been apprehensive but she’d assured him she wouldn’t be under any more stress than she was at home. It would also mean more income, money that didn’t have to be saved up. Thanks to Sidney’s interference, she and James were far more well off than she could have ever hoped. To her relief, upon looking over the papers that had been carefully set upon Sidney’s desk, he’d taken care of nearly everything before leaving. There were so many safeguards in place that she believed Tom could burn the whole of it to the ground and they would still be relatively fine. He only needed someone to help him manage it all. 

Charlotte took to it all fairly well and she was able to learn new parts of Sidney’s job as she went. Tom handled everything else but three times a week she went into town and would spend hours in Sidney’s office, handling all sorts of odds and ends. So much so that it was often James who would come by and practically drag her home. 

He’d been gone for almost three months. It was the off-season, Christmas was days away, and she was half-way through her pregnancy. “Mary said he wrote them to say he would be in town for the Christmas Ball, but he didn’t specify. Only that he and Eliza would be there.”

Allison rubbed her forearms and stared out at the misty grey horizon of the ocean. “How many times did you write?”

“Twice.” Charlotte cut her tongue along her teeth, a habit she had when she wasn’t sure if she wanted to say more or leave something be. “I don’t even know if he received them… I only wrote to say that I was sorry and-”

Allison looked at her incredulously. “For what, in particular?”

“For… everything.” She gestured wildly and frustratedly. “For not waiting for him! For not trying to find another solution so that he wouldn’t have to marry that horrible woman! For marrying someone else and having a child with them!” Allison’s hand came down over Charlotte’s, trying to calm her down a bit before letting her continue. Charlotte took a deep breath. “It wasn’t just him, it was me. It would have helped if I could have turned him away. Or even if I didn’t love James… but I didn’t send him away… and I do love James… Sometimes I think if I had never met Sidney, or if we’d never gotten past our differences. James and I could have been so happy.” She sniffled and wiped at her nose. Charlotte closed her eyes and added, breathing as the weight of secrecy was lifted from her, “I miss Sidney all the time… Sometimes I’m in his office and I realize I’m crying into a pile of receipts because I can smell his cologne on the furniture. And when I feel the baby kick, I wish it was his… that way I could have a piece of him forever that no one on earth could take away from me.”

Allison said nothing. She only lay her hand gently on Charlotte’s back, patting her softly as they both stared off at the horizon. Sometimes Allison hoped that she never fell in love. Charlotte loved twice over and it seemed to be eating her from the inside out.

No, she thought, no good could come from something that so hollowed out a person- until they were full of regrets and sadness.

………………………………………………………………

Allison had helped her dress party. They both were white gowns as it was a request on the invitation. Ladies were to wear white and the gentlemen asked to wear the colorful attire in shades befitting the season. It had been the talk of the town for weeks and the seamstresses had had their hands full with work. Some ladies, Esther and Georgiana included, had even had dresses designed and sent to them from London. Charlotte had to admit she was excited herself and had let her sister pin her curls so that they hung over her shoulder and were tucked all over with mistletoe and little white flowers made from paper that had been shaped like stars.Allison, by contrast, had stained her lips a bright red berry shade and tucked sprigs of matching red holly into her own hair. 

Charlotte had picked out James’ outfit herself. It was a deep wine shade, made of an unbearably soft material the seamstress had suggested. His waistcoat was slightly darker but it all made a stark compliment to his fair hair and clear blue eyes. She smirked at him and told him he looked devilishly handsome. 

She tried not to let it show how on edge she was, but Charlotte could not help that everytime James looked away or was otherwise occupied she would search the room for Sidney- or even Eliza as he would not be too far from her. There were more people at the ball than she had expected, certainly more than had been invited. 

They were there for some time, perhaps hours before she sighted him. For once spotting him before he did her. He seemed to have just arrived, handing his coat and hat to a servant. Charlotte felt her heart flutter and sighed almost in relief. He looked so handsome, his dark hair and dark eyes complemented by the emerald shades of his attire. He walked briskly forward and held out his arm, waiting for Eliza to divest herself of her own voluminous coat of cream and gold. She was a vision, Charlotte thought. Her blonde tresses looked ethereal with her white gown and she decked actual glittering emeralds dripping from her ears and throat. No doubt to attribute to Sidney’s own attire. They looked as if they’d been designed by an artist, examples of pristine beauty.

To her surprise the baby kicked sharply, as if reminding her where she was. She closed her eyes in pain, rubbing soothingly at her right rib. “I thought you were asleep.” She muttered.

James turned to her, having overheard her comment. He placed his hand over hers and asked if she was alright. Charlotte nodded and took the drink he handed her. Sipping it between breaths. She let him usher her toward a nearby chair. The moment he set her down, however, a drunken Tom barreled over with Mr. Mourant and the two men bustled him away to discuss something or other about the grand architecture of the new Sanditon. They headed toward a large group of people she didn’t recognize and she surmised that perhaps James would be gone for a while. She had to admit, Tom was better at his sales routine with a drink or two in him. It had the odd effect of making him more at ease and witty. 

Charlotte rubbed the edge of her glass. Allison she could see was being introduced to a gentleman by Mary and even Goergiana was bursting at the seams with laughter as Arthur spun around her exuberantly to the rhythm of the music. 

While she was happy to see the people she loved so engaged and enjoying themselves, she felt a bit like a wet blanket. Somehow, in her visibly fertile state she’d become virtually invisible. Normally, she wouldn’t have minded much. It was only that this time, she could not lose herself in the happenings around her. She could only notice how Sidney was refusing to acknowledge her. He clung to Eliza throughout the night.

At one point she stood to retrieve a drink from the table as he was standing there, but the moment he spotted her- he smoothly turned his back and veered off in a different direction. Charlotte felt her heart sink, there was no doubt he was avoiding her. She didn’t know whether she was more sad or angry or even what she really expected from him. But it had been months without him, and she was trying to come to terms with being happy to just have him there- in the same room. To remember where she had been before and be grateful for what she could get and stop letting herself believe that things could be any different without destroying everyone around them.

Allison came up behind her, hooking her arm conspiratorially through Charlotte’s. “I forgot how handsome he was.” She said offhandedly and Charlotte did not need to ask whom she was speaking of. “He has a very alluring brooding quality. Very… Pluto-like. I suppose that would make you Kore.”

Charlotte raised a quizzical brow at her sister, “You hate to read.”

Allison smirked. “I only read the pages with corners folded.” She led Charlotte around the room and leisurely through the throngs of people. “Has he spoken to you?”

“No, the exact opposite actually. It is as if he can sense my presence and is naturally repelled in the opposite direction.”

“Do you think he loved her? Pluto and Kore, I mean.”

Charlotte thought back on the pages she’d read, not the contents but the scent of the pages and their softness under fingers. She imagined Sidney spotting the book, holding it and thinking of her. “The gods all had numerous wives and mistresses… not him. It's not even really explicitly stated. She is cited as the mother of his children, though there is some tragic circumstance there- he names them his own and throughout their history he is called their father. She always goes back to him, and he is never said to have loved another… In my mind they are very much in love." She took a deep breath, "He is very misunderstood I think. I think darkness frightens people-"

"But not you." Allison's tone suggested more fact than question.

Charlotte wanted to say no, but she recalled the times Sidney had shouted at her- all the times his anger had truly frightened her. How she’d put on a brave face and tried to remain steady under the weight of his anger. She’d never admitted it to anyone, but it was one of the reasons she’d used to convince herself that James was the better man. Why she clung to James like a safe port in a storm. He’d never, in all the time they’d known each other, raised his voice or hands to her. 

Sidney had never meant to hurt her or frighten her she knew, thinking of the light bruises she’d had from when he’d held her so tightly before kissing her more passionately than she’d ever been kissed by anyone. Even she had meant to wound then, remembering too how she’d struck at him- though they both knew there was little damage she could inflict. 

“I believe everyone has a chance to redeem themselves, even through small acts at a time. And vice versa. No man is born in total darkness, evil is born in acts of cruelty- one after the other. Like adding dirt to water… until it is just mud.”

She hadn’t expected Allison to reply as they entered a dance meant only for the ladies. Her sister stood across from her, and in the absence of gentlemen she saw that the invitation had the desired effect. The women looked like a delicate flock of doves, a gathering of angels at the center of the room. Their soft white and cream colored gowns making everything seem delicate and magical.

Allison's voice barely cut over the din as the ladies continued to line up on either side of them, ready to dance. “I think we ignore true nature when it has a lovely face.”


	8. Chapter 8

.

Charlotte had not been angry with Allison’s words, only concerned that they might be true. Allison had left her alone after the dance, allowing a gentleman to pull her into another turn as the music changed and Charlotte, partnerless, exited. 

She wandered around looking for a familiar face, James in particular. The estate had been vigorously expanded since she was there last. Instead of the single ballroom, there was a second floor and two or three other rooms meant for more private gatherings. James had designed most of the architecture in himself, even boasting how the hallway was a true invention. 

Instead of stairs leading to the second floor, the hallways gradually rose along the outside of the structure- the person traversing them only knowing this by peering out one of the few windows as they walked. Charlotte, unable to find her husband or another familiar face capable of distracting her, wandered aimlessly through the structure. Trying to take note of the touches James had talked avidly to her about since he’d first come to her in Willingdon. 

Charlotte stopped at the last window, admiring the candlelit crowd below as couples took shelter in the dim light. There was a pause in the music and she heard a faint crash coming from a room ahead of her. It was a private room, a standard drawing room that she knew was often used by Tom to woo newcomers and investors and traders. 

Charlotte took a deep breath as another crash came, this time she was sure it was glass. Fearing the worst, she braced herself before opening the door carefully. 

“Get out!” Came a familiar shout and then the sound of stumbling, something scraping against the rug and a gentle clinking of glass on glass and she knew immediately the sight that would greet her once she peered around the door.

Sure enough, she saw Sidney Parker staring darkly at her with a glass full of sloshing dark liquid. The sconces were all out, but he was bathed in moonlight from the two windows that faced back toward the cliffs and sea. He frowned at her over the rim of his glass, glaring. “There is no escaping you is there?” 

She said nothing, only looked at the overturned furniture surrounding him, and noticed the crunch of glass beneath her shoes as she stepped further inside. She closed the door behind her, and paused before deciding to lock it behind her- though she couldn’t have said why. “I suppose you can take comfort in that you’ve done your best.” She said quietly as she watched him.

He laughed and downed his glass before pelting it casually at the far wall, the crash and sight of his strength sending a shiver down her spine. Sidney reached for another empty glass off the nearby tray. He was sitting on the edge of a small writing desk that had formerly been pushed into the corner but now had been set next to the cart of spirits, his long legs still skirting the floor even from the higher ledge. She could smell it on the air, not just from what he’d destroyed but what he’d consumed. The moonlight flickered in the remaining crystal as much as in his glassy gaze, a drunken anger he pulled around himself. 

“Never hard enough it seems… get out.” He said again, his voice cold as ice. Charlotte did her best not to show how they stung.

“No.” She said simply, tightening her fists in the folds of her dress, bracing herself against the barrage she knew would come. And come it did. Sidney’s anger flared and her chucked the second glass in her direction. Not nearly close enough to hurt her but intending to startle her as it struck the wall a few feet to her left, shattering a sconce as well. She frowned and her arms came up instinctively over her stomach.

When she looked back at Sidney his eyes were wide as he noticed her movement, and she thought perhaps there was a touch of regret there until he turned away and grabbed another glass and began to fill it. For a moment, between throwing the crystal and seeing her guard the baby she was carrying so instinctively, he’d forgotten. “I suppose…” He began. “Sweet Mr. Stringer, wouldn’t have done that.” 

“Never.” She whispered without malice or intent, only that it was the truth she knew to the very core of her. 

He smiled sardonically and raised his glass in her direction. “To the better man… they always win don’t they.”

She wanted to say how that wasn’t always true. Good men lost all the time: in history, in myths, in fairy tales… She stepped carefully around the furniture, making her way to stand before him. Her heart was racing as she avoided the piles of debris, lifting her skirts to toe aside the larger pieces. She was so focused she didn’t see how he watched her.

She looked like an angel to him, straight from his dreams. All clad in white and lace billowing out from her elbows toward her wrists like wings. She was close now, taking the glass from his hand and dumping that last of it onto the carpet. Charlotte looked away as she set the glass back down carefully, upside down so that the remaining drops of drink made a wet ring on the silver tray. She didn’t see Sidney move and so she was startled when she felt his hands settle tenderly on the curve of her stomach.

She could hear her own heartbeat thudding in her ears as Sidney splayed his large hands brazenly over her skin. The fabric of her dress caught between his fingers as he moved his hands experimentally around, as if he was feeling for something else and then she realized, “He’s sleeping.”

Sidney remained fixated on her pregnant belly, only nodding his head to acknowledge her. “It should have been mine.” He muttered. “I wanted you to be the one to make me a father and I wanted you to be the mother of my children… it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Charlotte frowned and lifted her hands to his face. She let her fingers trace the lines of him, the curve of his brow, the sharp angles of cheeks and down to his jawline. He sighed and relaxed into the comfort of her touch, his dark lashes soft against the faint lines around his eyes. Charlotte leaned down to kiss the crown of his head, feeling his soft hair tickle her nose as she combed her fingers above his ears- her nails scraping lightly against his scalp.

She felt him tremble under her touch before he wound his arms around her and she felt his mouth slide warm and soft over her neck and along the visible skin of her breasts. His hands slid to her sides, stroking high as his thumbs kneaded at the curves of her breasts. Her skin felt hypersensitive and she heard herself moan quietly under his touch as he slid up along her body to press kisses along the curves of her face before finding her mouth.

Once when she was very young, she and her siblings had been playing in a nearby lake. The boys had found a rope tied to a nearby tree for swinging. Charlotte, being the eldest, had insisted on going first. The water was deeper than she’d estimated and as she’d plunged into the depths she had clawed at the water frantically trying to reach the surface. Those mere seconds had felt like a lifetime, the panic of her lungs begging for air and the fleeting fear that she might drown before she emerged. And then finally, when she did break through the water’s edge to feel the all encompassing relief and joy of being able to breathe again.

That feeling.

That was what being with Sidney felt like.

As if she were in constant state of drowning, and when he touched her- she could finally breathe again.

The a raucous outside the door and then the sound of applause. The ambience around them dissipated and the urge to be physically closer, while not disappearing, softened and shifted to something else as they simply held each other. She felt a dampness in her hair and on her neck and knew they were tears. 

“Why am I like this?” He asked, his voice pliant and heavy on her skin. She nuzzled her cheek against the top of his head, her fingers combing against the nape of his neck. 

“I love you anyway.” Was all she could think to say.   
They stayed like that for sometime before Sidney leaned back to look up at her. “I’ll be better tomorrow... I promise.”

There was such an unguardedness to his features, a child-like fragility she felt as she held him like she was holding spun glass. Afraid to do more than hold him. He was the one to extricate himself from her, carefully lifting her arms from him so he could stand before her. 

She smiled as he towered over her. He was so strong, she thought, so sturdy against the hardships that fell on him- everyone around him seemed to forget that he could be wounded. That sometimes he might be the one in need of protecting, even from himself, even from the people he loved.


	9. Chapter 9

In the end, she’ll never not blame herself. 

First. Foremost. Above all else.

She sent him out of the room first, not trusting him to be alone in the wreckage of the room. Charlotte knew she needed to start protecting him, even from himself. She waited before leaving herself, taking the time to right some of the furniture. What she could do. Nothing could be done at that moment for the shards of glass or even the destroyed sconce or stained wallpaper. 

The room would have to be redone, she thought at the back of her mind. 

The door creaked open behind her and she turned, startled. To her relief James was framed in the doorway, backlit by golden candlelight, each smiled kindly at the sight of the other. “Everything alright?” Came his soft voice, reaching toward her through the darkness and moonlight.

Charlotte nodded, “Someone seemed to have a bit too much fun in here, however.” Her lie came smoothly and she nodded to the disaster surrounding them. And he seemed to notice it for the first time, his expression disheartened as he shook his head. She found she had no problem now, lying even to James, if it meant protecting Sidney. 

“Are you alright?” He asked, holding his hand out to her. 

“Yes.” Charlotte took his hand and let him lead her from the room. “I only stumbled on it while trying to see some of your work here. It is a lovely design James.” 

“I’m sorry for abandoning you-” He began but she interrupted him, saying that she did not mind. She added that she was exhausted and asked if he would mind very much if they returned home. He squeezed her gently into his side and to her surprise added that Allison was already waiting for them in the carriage. 

She laughed but secretly wondered if their earlier conversation had spoiled the night for Allison, or if James was simply as tired of society functions as he always was. It easily could have been a combination of both. Charlotte let James pull her arm through his as he helped her over the debris and out of the dark room, the door falling closed behind them with a quiet click. 

The next morning she’d awoken as if it were any other day. James had already gone to town, though he needn’t have, considering most of the other men were probably still inebriated from the previous night. James was a good man and if the laborers would be there at the first sign of daylight he believed he should be as well. She was glad that even though he was moving up in the world, bettering his position not just for himself but her as well, that he remained loyal to his roots. He never forgot where he came from, and she admired the compassion it helped instill in him.

Still, Charlotte had felt odd the moment she opened her eyes. It wasn’t pain or sickness, but more an unsettling feeling in her skin she couldn’t place. She padded over to the kitchen, taking a bite from an apple- though she wasn’t particularly hungry. It felt like swallowing a rock and so she set it back down on the table, it rocked back and forth on its round side catching her eye for a moment as she felt almost hypnotized by the little movement. Trying again she poured herself some water, forcing herself to take two long gulps. 

It made no difference. It was as if her senses were prickling but at the same time the world around her had a slight edge to it, like she was still dreaming and everything her mind was comprehending was through a thick fog. Suddenly she felt too warm and the air in the house was stifling. Every breath feeling full and weighted inside her. She only barely managed to step into her slippers before walking out the backdoor of her little house and down the soft dirt and sand path down to the beach. 

Charlotte didn’t know why, but it was as if some instinct was pulling her toward the sea. The cool water would sooth her warm skin, she thought, and the fresh breeze would clear her head. The more steps she took however, she could feel her breathing become more and more labored. Before she knew it she’d wadded waist-deep into the water. 

Her heart seemed to calm in her chest for a moment as she pulled in lungfuls of crisp cold air. 

For a moment, she thought she would be okay. That whatever it was had past.

Charlotte suddenly doubled over with a loud cry. There was a sharp, stabbing feeling in her abdomen and she clutched at the swell of her stomach. Every move she made came with a searing pain. The waves crashed at her back, as if they were shoving her back to the shore. It felt like ages before she felt the ground stabilize beneath her, clutching handfuls of wet muddy sand as she tried to crawl up the beach. She screamed as another blinding pain shot through her entire body and for a moment she saw stars and blackness and nothing else.

There was no sea, or sky. No little house on a cliff just yards away…

Charlotte cried out, praying someone would hear. That Allison could hear her over the sounds of the sea. That some passerby might come and save her baby…

.  
.  
.  
.  
.

He virtually flew over the ground. His long legs pounding into the dewy grass, hitting in time with a thudding in his ears- the hammering of his heart. 

It wasn’t the exertion sewing sweat along his brow and making his muscles burn. It was the image of seeing Charlotte in distress. Her pregnant form sprawled on the sand, drenched in sea water. His mind tortured him over and over again with the scene as he ran, vowing to himself that he could not be too late. 

It wouldn’t end like this.

Sidney had woken early that morning, the sun pulling him from his bed as it dragged up from the horizon. He should have been hung over. He should have slept most of the day. From the moment he opened his eyes, however, there had been a gnawing feeling in his chest he couldn’t place. An edge on him, fraying his nerves- like fire catching up a line of gunpowder. He’d dressed and ate and tried to work through some papers that Tom had left a few days before his arrival. Still, Sidney could not make himself calm. Something was wrong.

He knew when he purchased the land where Charlotte’s home was in relation to his own estate and that it was mostly blocked from his view. He could not see the structure of her home, as anything else in his mind was more invasive than he thought he could bear or had any right to. The beach just beyond it, however, was in full view. He had not expected her to take the routine of appearing there daily, nor had he intended to be voyeur. It happened slowly, noticing the routine and then- on the occasion he was in his study, to peer through the telescope mounted by the window to see her there.

Sometimes he wondered if she knew. Or if by some chance, she was trying to see him too.

That morning, he’d done it out of habit. Out of instinct.

He’d taken no time to saddle his horse. He wasn’t even sure how much time had passed between bolting through his home and practically sliding through the sandy path down to the beach.

He only knew that she was unconscious by the time he reached her. She was curled in on herself, clutching at her pregnant belly and her wet curls plastered to her cheek and neck. “I’m here, darling…” He heard himself say as he scooped her into his arms, his hands shaking as he tried to keep his balance. Her head lolled against his shoulder and she moaned something that sounded like his name. Sidney couldn’t stop though, he ran as best he could up the little path, clutching her limp form to him.

He shouted for Allison, James… anyone as he ran through the grass. Prepared to tear down the door if he had to. His vision was blurred as he approached the house, but the shouting of Charlotte’s name was clear as day. Allison stood in the open door way, her eyes wide and fearful as Sidney pushed past her into the house. He shouted at her to fetch the doctor. 

She questioned him in a panic as he went, knocking over a chair and side table as he fought to lay Charlotte down in her bed. The same bed that she’d sat in when she told him she was with child, someone else’s child. It was months ago, but in Sidney’s memory it was as clear as if it had happened moments ago. That devastation compared with this new one in his mind. How the world seemed to be playing yet another cruel joke on them both. How then, he’d felt destroyed by the knowledge that James was the father of her baby. The husband to his soulmate…

It was as if the world wanted to show him how little knew of sorrow. It wanted to show him a world where she had no baby. And perhaps even a world where there was no Charlotte…

Sidney turned to see Allison staring at them with wide eyes and all the color gone from her skin. He knew she was scared, at least as terrified as he was. Her mouth gaped open wordlessly and she seemed to not even see him as he shouted at her again to fetch the doctor. She only glanced at Sidney before nodding mutely and running out of the house to fetch a horse.

It was suddenly quiet then and the exhaustion he felt crept up on him all once. He stumbled back to the bed his body gave out beneath him and he fell to his knees at her bedside. “It’s alright, darling.” He rasped as he rested his forehead against hers, his words feeling like sandpaper in his throat. “You’re safe now.” 

He pulled back to look at her, searching for any sign of wakefulness. Her eyes remained closed, her lashes fluttering slightly as the rest of her remained still. Sidney reached up to push back the tangled wet mess of her hair as it stuck to her forehead and neck. As his fingers moved across her sallow skin, he saw the red streaks they left in their wake. Smudged along her cheek and above her brow. Sidney looked at one hand and then the other, feeling a new horror creep in on him as he saw that they were dark red. 

Dread filled him as he forced himself to look at Charlotte fully, knowing what he would see and hoping all the while that he was wrong. Her skirts were still tangled and plastered against her legs- but it was the first time he noticed how they were stained deep red. The blood still spreading from between her legs, soaking her skirts and the sheets beneath her.

There was deafening silence in the room as Sidney felt himself crumble at the realization of what exactly was happening. Blinking through tears he reached back up to Charlotte, pulling her body toward him so that his arms came around her shoulders and her head was tucked under his chin. As if by keeping her close he could protect her from this somehow, as if he could will time to turn itself back- undo this tragedy unfolding before his very eyes as he looked on helplessly. 

Sidney clutched her tightly, his voice muffled against her hair as he wept. “Tell me what to do, Charlotte… I don’t… don’t leave me.” He gritted his teeth against the thought, “I’m not ready...”

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait guys. First I lost the inspiration for it, and when I did feel comfortable with where it was at it was mother's day and due to the content I felt a little inappropriate posting yesterday. Thank you guys for sticking with me and for all your well wishes! More to come soon! This chapter and the next are going to deal with the more sensitive topic of grief and miscarriage. I personally have not been through that but women very close to me have and I have been privileged enough to be one of the people to help them through it. I will never pretend to truly know what it is like, I hope I never have to, but this story is a little bit inspired and in reverence to stories I have heard from people close to me.


	10. Chapter 10

All the rest of his life, he’ll wonder if he brought this fate down on her.

She survives the miscarriage, but its in pieces and….

“She was in and out of consciousness for three days. I lost count of how many times I had to tell her that it was over. That the baby was gone.” Sidney’s eyes are on his hands, fisted in his lap while Allison recalled to him what happened. She was odd, like Charlotte, and yet not like her at all. Allison had a calming sort of pragmatic approach to the world. Dispassionate and matter of fact, she presented things as they were but she wasn’t immovable. Charlotte was a stubborn little mountain of passion and conviction. His mouth turned slightly at the thought, about to smile at the image of her in his head- brow furrowed and stance firm. Then he remembered… the bad memories resurface to destroy the good.

He’d stayed into the night that first day, James pacing and occasionally asking Sidney if he was sure while the doctor and his nurse tended to Charlotte. To which Sidney shook his head, saying he wasn’t. Allison had sat between them, much like she was now. Her eyes were weary and she was clutching a teacup while she stared at nothing, clearly lost in her own thoughts.

The doctor told them that the baby was gone and Charlotte was out of the woods for the most part. He told James and Allison that she would take time to heal. Charlotte was to be confined to her bed for a fortnight. James had broken down in the chair, his head in his hands while Charlotte’s sister comforted him. It was then that he realized how unwelcome he was. Charlotte was not his wife nor his family and it was not his child that was dead… 

Sidney took his leave with the doctor. It took everything he had not to break down the door and plant himself at Charlotte’s side. But it wasn’t his place, he had to keep reminding himself of that. It would also have been preternaturally cruel to James, who had done nothing but marry the woman he loved… 

His hand had shot for the doctors’ shoulder, stilling the older man before he could depart in his coach. “What was the reason, if I may ask?” The doctor pulled a look of confusion and so Sidney braced himself and clarified. “How did the child die?”

The doctor’s face melted to pity and he climbed carefully back down from the coach so that he could stand face to face with Sidney, and Sidney got the distinct impression that it was not the first time he had had to deliver news like this. “We are not to know God’s will. Only that it simply is and it is irrefutable. She may have another someday and this grief will pass.” 

Sidney stood in shock as the doctor climbed back into his coach and left without another word. He knew women lost children all the time, that it wasn’t spoken of and they were even more rarely mourned. He knew however, in the depths of his soul, Charlotte would not see it so. The baby hadn’t even been his own but he felt the grief for her, as if in her unconscious state it needed a host and had passed to him for safe keeping. The notion that Charlotte would move on so easily, that one child could replace another, was callous to him.

That had been nearly a little more than a week ago. Out of respect Sidney had maintained his distance. He had not called on them and had made no attempt to see Charlotte. It was in fact Allison who had sought him out. She had come to call at his home, asking to speak with him privately. She didn’t need to worry however, Eliza was with the dressmaker in town- toting with her a carriage full of fabrics she’d brought with her from their excursions to Italy and France. He would be surprised if she returned before dusk.

He asked the servants to set up tea for them in the garden and so now they sat. Allison continued to turn the teacup in her hands nervously. “She is devastated.” She said plainly. “She barely eats or speaks. She won’t come outside or see anyone, she even refused to see Mary.”

Sidney hung his head. “I don’t know what I can do.” He admitted, knowing that was what Allison was asking.

She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head slightly. “I’m not sure you can do anything to help, but I am not beyond asking. I’d do anything for my sister.” She took a deep breath and added, “I would venture to say you would as well.”

Sidney finally met the younger girl's gaze, as she eyed him without reproach. Making it plain that she meant the things she said and she never didn’t things through. “I told my sister I thought she might’ve been bewitched by your handsome face. That she could be so enraptured simply because you are so lovely to look at, I did not believe that after all you’d done there could be a heart in you worthy of being so deeply loved…”

He smiled wryly at her honesty. “You are not alone in that belief.” 

Her face remained impassive and she spoke slowly, cautious so that she would not be mistaken. "I saw you that day. Through this mask of indifference you wear. I saw finally, that you weren't cold at all… just very tragically guarded. I saw how you loved her, enough that her pains were yours. My misgivings were never about you, but what she might let herself become because of you. I thought that what existed between the both of you was dark and perhaps even unkind…"

"It is-" He began but she put her hand over his.

"I will not pretend to know the depths that love can reach, as I have never felt that sort of affection. I do know what your love has cost you, Mr. Parker. I know that you pay the price everytime and I’ve seen how it pains you, yet you never stop. Never waver. You do not falter Mr. Parker… I am in admiration of all you've done for Charlotte.” 

There was a sincerity in Allison that unnerved Sidney. It was strange to have someone else besides Charlotte and himself know the truth of it all, to tell him what an observer made of them. “I am afraid, Mr. Parker-”

“Call me, Sidney. Please.” 

She pursed her lips, and looked at him with something like regret. “I am not sure you will be so comfortable with that familiarity when you hear the rest of what I must say. What I must ask…” He furrowed his brow but straightened and gave her his full attention and so she continued. “I must ask you to come see her, to speak with her at the very least… Neither James or myself, her friends, can pull her from this sadness.”

“Grief is a strange creature, Miss Heywood.” It struck a chord in him to realize he’d never addressed her before, had never used Charlotte’s title for anyone else. “I mourn my father to this day and he has been gone nearly ten years. I have never lost a child but I can imagine, knowing Charlotte as I do, that it will take time.”

Allison shook her head stubbornly. “This is different. You are not refusing to eat, to rise and leave your bed for more than a few moments… She asked for you.” Sidney’s head snapped up at her desperate tone. “She was crying in my arms and she said ‘I need him’. I knew she did not mean James.” 

Sidney's mouth tightened and his hands clenched into fists, a tension building in him at the information Allison presented him with. He nodded. 

Allison stood. “Come at ten o’clock. You must be gone before evening, that is when James will be back from town. I will give you two privacy, find something to keep myself occupied.” She curtsied and made to leave when Sidney called out to her. 

“You may still call me Sidney if you wish. I hope you will afford me the same familiarity.” 

She smiled kindly, small but tinged with the burden of sadness. “Sidney.” She said with a little bow of her head.

“Allison.” He returned.


	11. Chapter 11

.

She didn’t want to see him.

Allison flinched as her sister shouted at her to send him away. Charlotte had never been one to raise her voice at her sister, not like that. Not demanding and never so unkind. Allison had however expected this and so she did not send Sidney away. Instead she stepped into the other room, looking knowingly at Sidney as she pulled her hat on, “I’m going into town. James took the horse so I should be back by midday.”

Sidney waited for the door to click behind her, and watched through a window as she disappeared down the path to town. Not until he could no longer see Allison in the distance did he tread carefully to the door to Charlotte’s bedroom, turning the knob and pushing it open slowly. Only a faint creaking of the hinge cutting through the silence like thunder. He didn’t know what he expected. To see her tangled in the bed clothes like a madwoman perhaps even to be met with some odd object thrown in his direction. No, that wasn’t like Charlotte. That was much more like Eliza, a dramatic person he’d come to find. As if the world were constantly falling apart around her.

Charlotte wasn’t a violent person by nature. No, she fought with words and wit and the truth as she knew it to be.

What he hadn’t expected was to find her sitting on the window seat, tucked into the tiny frame of it set into the wall. She wore only a shift, her arms bare, but he could see the shadow as the sun cut her silhouette softly through the thin fabric and hung around the edges of her like a warm halo. Her arms wrapped around her legs and her knees tucked under her chin. Her beautiful hair was in disarray, long and tangled as it hung over her shoulders and down her back.

Charlotte’s gaze was fixated on the scene beyond the window, the sea stretching out like a dark glittering blanket as it danced under the sun. “Is he gone?” She croaked.

Her voice was hollow and strained and it cut at Sidney’s heart to hear her so devoid, so clearly stricken with grief. He took off his hat and set it on the edge of the bed as he took a small step closer. “No.” He said quietly, his voice gravely and perhaps even a little frightened- even to his own ears. She didn’t turn to look at him. If anything she seemed to edge deeper into the frame, turning her down into herself with her forehead on her knees. He could see her fingers flex as she clutched tighter around herself.

“Please go away.” Came her muffled voice, small and pleading.

He took a deep breath, feeling as if his every nerve were exposed. This was a side of Charlotte he’d never seen. She had been hurt when he bid her farewell the first time, and she’d been angry with him when he’d shown up in Willingdon and accused her of betraying him. This was a Charlotte destroyed and defeated, grief stricken in the worst sort of way. “I promised to come back to you… always.”

She turned her head, to finally look at him and Sidney saw what frightened Allison. In all the time he’d known her, there had never been a coldness to Charlotte, even when she was unhappy there was a fire in her that never went out. As she was in that moment, there was a void where the hearth of her heart had been. “I don’t want you here.” She choked, her eyes rimmed red and hair a disarray of diffused curls. She could have passed for manic, if only she didn’t look so defeated. So lost.

“You don’t have to do this to yourself Charlotte-” He began and reached out to touch her but she grimaced and roughly shoved his hand away before he could.

She glared at him as she shouted, “You can’t fix this! I tempted fate! I asked for too much,” She bit her lip and stood from the window seat. “I wanted my baby and I wanted you and I didn’t want to hurt James and… and n-now there is no baby.”

Sidney stood firm in the storm of her emotions and said gently, “It wasn’t anything you did, Charlotte.”

Her eyes were brimming with tears as she looked at him as if he’d struck her. “It was a boy… Did my sister tell you that?!” And her voice cracked as she spoke, her shoulders shaking. She pressed her hands to her face as the tears came again. Just when she thought she had no more, they came flooding forth again and again. An endless barrage of heartache she could get no reprieve from. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.” Charlotte’s voice was barely a whisper.

The air hung dead between them, a heavy weight of things that lay sleeping and dormant. Where their love had thrived on passion and tension and desire, there was no room for any of it now. Sidney reached for her again but she shrunk back like an animal being cornered yet refusing to go quietly into the end. “It is my fault." She said again. "I let you in, even as I vowed it was over. This is the cost! This was the price!"

Sidney reached for her again, this time unrelenting as she struggled against him. Fighting his intention. Still, he wound his arms tight around her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides even as she thrashed and kicked. He took every blow as if he could not feel them and he just held her. For a moment Charlotte was a woman possessed, she fought the iron-like grip of Sidney’s hold. Prying at his hands and struck at any part she could reach. It was as if he absorbed every ounce of anger and pain, transferring from her tired body into his own.

Her body slowly relaxed in his embrace until she hung virtually limp in his hold. Sidney pressed his face in the matted tangles of her hair, the strands still soft against his lips, and shut his eyes tight against the sound of her anguished cries. He felt her brokenness as if it were his own, holding her up as her sadness stole all her strength.

She had loved the child, had wanted it with every fiber of her being. She’d been so close to this vision she’d had in her head where everything was okay. Sidney and she could be friends, truly. Where she could find a happiness with James that wasn’t tinged with the regret of a greater love lost. They would have had children and a family and she could finally let Sidney go, not just for herself but him most of all…

Charlotte remembered when James’ plan had been to leave Sanditon, to apprentice elsewhere. They should have gone, she thought. It was her own selfishness, the opportunity to keep Sidney in her life tempting her most selfish instincts. She always knew that if she’d only pressed James to take her away, for them to move on from the seaside town, he would have done whatever she asked. Charlotte convinced herself that was the crime she had committed. The one that set in effect the chain of events that led her to where she was now. That if she’d only done the right thing by both the men she loved, she wouldn’t have Sidney- but she would be holding a living breathing baby in her arms and nothing else would matter.

As if reading her thoughts, Sidney whispered to her carefully. “This is not a restitution…”

He doesn’t know how long they stand like that. Long enough that he feels exhausted himself. Long enough that her skin feels cold and he thinks she might be falling asleep. Sidney turns her carefully toward him, pulling one of her arms over his shoulders carefully as he bends down and hooks his other arm under her legs. She clutches to him weakly as he cradles her in his arms, and he tries not to think about the last time he held her like this as he walks over to the window seat. He sits down with her draped over his lap and she rests her head against his chest. Her hands are tucked between them, fisted in the fabric of his coat as she drifts into a dreamless sleep with his hands stroking absently at her hair.

That is how Allison finds them, asleep and curled up in one another. Her heart sinks in her chest, for a million reasons. James was a kind man, he deserved someone who could love him back the way Charlotte loved Sidney. Sidney was a good man as well, put under immense circumstances. Yet he survived every time, though it was as if pieces of him were chipped away each time, and she wondered how long it would be before he crumbled; worse yet, if it was Charlotte herself who cut him the most- the deepest.

And Charlotte, her dear sweet sister who was a shadow of who she used to be. In her heart Allison knew Charlotte was doing the best she could. Fate seemed determined to beat her down as it did Sidney and she wondered if, in some deeply disturbed way, that was what kept them in each other’s atmosphere. Two people destined to never be truly happy, finding a reprieve from the pains of existence in one another.

Star-crossed in every way, at every turn or attempt to be together…

Allison moves quietly, gently nudging Sidney awake and watches as he gently lifts Charlotte back up to lay her in her bed. He whispers a promise to return tomorrow and Allison silently acknowledges that she will play her part again, though a part of her is indirectly terrified at the seeds she might be sowing in doing so.

Without another word he lets himself out and she busies herself with tucking the bedclothes around Charlotte, praying the visit did more good than harm.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: 
> 
> 1\. Thank you all for your kind messages and for taking the time to leave comments, it really motivates me to write more knowing that people actually look forward to reading more. I also really love reading your thoughts on the content even if I don't have enough time to reply to everyone I do read each review.
> 
> 2\. I want to clarify that the baby was James'. It was always James' baby. I felt the need to say that explicitly since some people still did not want to believe it wasn't a Sidlotte baby. I know its not what people wanted to hear but it is part of what will bring Charlotte and Sidney even closer.  
> \- Also this not why she miscarries. I would never suggest, even in fiction, that a person could will away an unwanted baby. And as you can see by this chapter she did want the baby, she always did. 
> 
> 3\. THIS IS STILL A SIDLOTTE CENTRIC STORY. Don't worry.
> 
> 4\. Also, I know I said around chapter 5 that we were about halfway through. I was wrong. I have no set number of chapters. I did focus on some parts for multiple chapters, more than I expected to. So for now all I can say for sure is that it will be longer than 12 chapters and there are still for sure two major 'events' in this story I want to cover before ending it. 
> 
> ONCE MORE: THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME, I AM SO GLAD THAT EVEN THOUGH PEOPLE ARE PISSED OFF AT HOW MUCH I'M TORTURING THESE TWO YA'LL STICK AROUND AND AREN'T HOPING I STEP ON A LEGO OR SOMETHING.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: For the sake of this story and the lack of clarification in either the novelization or television production of Sanditon. Sidney and James are 27, Eliza is 29 and Charlotte is 22.
> 
> .
> 
> .

Sidney met Eliza when she was nineteen and he had only been seventeen. His father had recently passed and his mother… his mother never recovered from it and had come to distance herself from her children to an alarming degree. She rarely toted them with her on her travels and generally let them run amok where they pleased. This was only truly alarming in Sidney. 

Sidney who was on the verge of manhood and still expected to care for his younger siblings, Arthur and Diana while Tom began his life with his new wife. It was never expected that Tom would take care of anyone, he could barely care for himself. It had come as no surprise that he fell in love with someone like Mary, a nurturer through and through. All the responsibility had fallen to Sidney with his father’s passing, the toll due for being the most grounded and sensible of his siblings and even his own mother. 

Sidney was generally left to run amok where he pleased- often getting himself into all sorts of trouble. The thing about Sidney was that no one was ever there to pull him out of those scrapes, and in a way- having to remedy his own mistakes played the biggest part of all in making him who he was. He knew what he could take and spent his lifetime both intentionally and unintentionally pushing those boundaries within himself. With his family, his friends and the women he loved.

Eliza was nineteen and the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. She’d been walking up a street in London when he first saw her. Her dress was the finest red silk, like damascus roses in full bloom. Her cornsilk hair piled atop her head in smooth perfect sweeps with a little pat pinned off center. Not a strand out of place. She was so striking he’d promptly abandoned his companions and caught up with her- introducing himself clumsily and flattering her with every compliment he could gather. She bantered with him coquettishly and brushed him off as she passed. Back en route to her destination, her ego thoroughly inflated.

He spent the next two years courting her, vowing marriage and eternal devotion. Making himself present at every function, keeping his ear to the ground for where she might present herself. He never had any doubt in his mind that he would marry her. He was handsome and young and from a good family with a respectable inheritance. So when she’d accepted his proposal one night and by the next was announced engaged to a man not only doubled in Sidney’s own wealth, but doubled in Eliza’s age… he’d been heartbroken. 

All he knows is that night she refused to acknowledge she’d done anything wrong. She didn’t see how he was so wounded, that she hadn’t actually accepted his proposal- that she never could have. She was an only child. An entire banking enterprise rested on her shoulders, whomever her future husband was would be groomed to replace her father. She explained this to Sidney, as if in shock that he’d never understood that. He stuck around London long enough to watch her get married, even snuck into her bridal room to ask her to run away with him. Insisting that she loved him. To his surprise she said that of course she loved him, but that it hardly mattered and promptly left to become someone else’s wife.

That was when he’d spent six days drinking and whoring and gambling, waking up on a spice trade ship with no money and no means. Georgiana’s father had taken him in and inadvertently filled the gaps in Sidney’s knowledge of the world. He learned about business and trade and the art of sale. Above all else he’d learned of the horrors of slavery. That was why Georgiana’s father had entrusted him with her care, her mother having died of sickness while she was still a toddler. 

The old man saw what everyone else saw, a man. Capable and decent and altogether unafraid. He didn’t know that with no children of his own, Sidney was tired of the trials of fatherhood. However, he owed his life to the old man and he felt honor bound to the other man’s wishes. Dying wishes as it were.

That was who he was when Eliza came into his life again: a guardian to an orphan girl of mixed race who wanted nothing to do with him- seeing him as the competition for her father’s affections until his dying breath. 

His heart had stopped when he saw her that night and on impulse he invited her to the regata. Unable to stop himself, and entirely forgetting about Charlotte. Forgetting about what had begun to grow in her absence. Forgetting the man he’d become in the time since.

That there was a girl who’d snuck into his heart with her wit and bravery and kindness. 

When he’d invited Eliza to Sanditon, he truly believed it a second chance at happiness. He’d thought his dalliance with Charlotte was just that, a pretty girl who’d simply grown on him in spite of the warring personalities and general discord. He did not believe he loved her, and he was certain Charlotte herself knew nothing of love…

It wasn’t until he found himself chasing her around the regata, trying to battle his way into her good graces again… To get her to look at him again the way she had at the ball in London, with those wide warm eyes that set a vice grip around his heart when they brimmed with tears. To stop feeling like there was a hole in his chest everytime she shrank away from his touch, as if she were revolted by him. 

When she begged him to leave her alone… it made him sick to his stomach. Thinking about separating himself from her, as if they were only acquaintances once again. As if she did not care whether he ever came to her again. In that moment he realized that was the last thing he wanted, that if it took him the rest of his life he would restore her love for him again. He would earn his place back in her heart.

Eliza had approached him after the race. Making it plain, in no uncertain terms that if he were to propose again- she would not say no. That she was comfortable in wealth and had no obligations holding her back anymore from what she wanted, him. Sidney confided in her that it was too late, that while he could now remember her fondly, his heart belonged to someone else.

Not even days later he’d been forced to go back on those words, pretend that he was still wounded by her rejection. Pretending to be mindless in trying to make her jealous, make her think she was the one who had lost him. He said all the things he had wanted to say to Charlotte, how he loved her and wanted to marry her.

Eliza had not been easily convinced however, she knew Charlotte was her rival but had been lulled into a fall comfort with the knowledge that the younger girl was going back to her little town. She believed she had won, that the younger girl was no longer a threat. Even if Sidney was distant and disinterested, he played his role well. He was her fiance, and when he became her husband she no longer felt the threat of little Charlotte Heywood. It wasn’t until she heard through her own husband that she’d married the foreman and would be returning to Sanditon.

Eliza had felt unease at the news, but she never broached the subject with Sidney directly. She opted instead to monopolize his attention with trips and parties and her devotion. She would sneak into Sidney’s bed and seduce him. He rarely sought her out, but she did her best to be memorable when he did. And for a while, especially on their second holiday together, she forgot about the other girl altogether. He was kinder than her first husband and more attentive, though no less preoccupied with business. 

She did not tell him when they wed or before that she suspected she might be unable to carry a child. There was no infrequency of intercourse between her and her first husband, though she’d never experienced any kind of desire like what she felt for Sidney. Women had whispered that the issue of conception could lie with the male. When she married Sidney she prayed that was the case, that maybe they would be better suited. 

When their second holiday came and went, she knew for sure it was she who was barren. It had been a strange mix of relief and disappointment. Eliza had always considered herself the perfect woman, it was the woman’s duty to provide an heir. To be a mother. Eliza herself had always secretly balked at the presence of children, and when she’d confided in her mother at this she had seemed unphased as she explained it was not the mother’s duty to rear the child herself but to put in place tutors and governesses to ensure a successful progeny. 

When she realized it would not be an issue one way or another she still felt the anxiety of having that conversation with Sidney. To her surprise he never broached the subject. 

The truth was Eliza knew nothing of true love. 

Her first husband was dutiful and little more. Never cruel but she wouldn’t have known affection if she saw it. With Sidney, she had no concept of his moods, she knew him as a man who rarely spoke. Who brooded and was constantly preoccupied. That was the man she married, she did not know he could be anything else.

She knew nothing of the continued interactions between her husband and Charlotte. She did not recognize his sadness when she saw it because in truth, as atune as she was to the behaviors of society, she had no will to delve deeper to the root of what made Sidney Parker so unhappy. It did not matter. He was her husband and he could not leave her, he had saved his beloved town only with her money. 

Through the short span of their marriage she grew tired of trying to please him but found comfort in the amicable presence of him as they played dutiful wife and doting husband to the world. She realized early on that she did not care if he took a mistress, her first husband had many, she did not even care if it was Charlotte herself. So long as he was discreet. Charlotte would be the one in ruin, or whomever he chose. 

She would always be Mrs. Parker.


	13. Chapter 13

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

“He promised?” She asked worriedly, and for the fourth time that afternoon as the sun began to creep down toward the horizon. 

Allison sat across from Charlotte at the kitchen table, watching as her already fragile sister’s eyes stayed fixed on the scene beyond the window. An empty and quiet road, grass bending back and forth with the sea breeze. “Yes.” She said quietly, knowing it wasn’t helpful but unsure of what else to do.

Sidney had promised to return the following day. She was sure of it, even as she re-ran the memory over and over in her mind. Trying to find if she had misheard him or perhaps imagined it. No, she was sure. She remembered the look in his eyes, the determination in his voice… Sidney meant what he said and she’d had no reason to doubt that he would appear the following day. But as the sun crept lower in the sky and the window of freedom closing, she knew he would not come. 

Charlotte’s brow was furrowed and she seemed on the verge of tears, her fingers rubbing distractedly along her lower lip in a nervous habit. When they were younger she remembered how her mother used to severely chastise her for biting her nails when she was nervous, the habit remaining even after all these years of untraining. A ghost of what it once was in favor of something more ladylike and untrue of Charlotte’s instinctive nature. 

“Something’s wrong.” Charlotte whispered. 

“We don’t know that-” Allison began, but Charlotte interrupted her in a growing panic. The chair creaked as she stood suddenly, and then Allison after her as she attempted to stop her sister from doing whatever she intended.

“If he said he would be here, he would be here.” Charlotte looked at Allison with wide unfounded terror as she tried to move past- though Allison’s hands on her shoulders held her back. “I must go see him. You don’t understand. He wouldn’t- he promised. He promised he’d come back to me and-”

“Charlotte. Charlotte! You must compose yourself!” Allison cupped her hands around Charlotte’s face, forcing her sister to meet her gaze and find her sense again as she reasoned with her. “Your husband will be back soon. There is no time for you to go to Sidney and return unnoticed. Eliza is there, she will want to know why. You could ruin her as much as yourself by going over there now.”

“I don’t care.” 

Allison steeled herself. She and Charlotte were cut from the same cloth and stubbornness was woven into their very essence. “You will hurt James, and Eliza and perhaps even Sidney if you are wrong.” She stroked Charlotte’s hair lovingly. “We must wait until tomorrow. I will go and call on him under some pretense. I will think of something that won’t arouse suspicion if Eliza is there. I will discover the reason for his absence.” She bit her lip. “I know it is difficult, but we must wait. I swear I will go as soon as James is gone.”

Charlotte began to cry as she considered her sister’s words, her eyes flickering to the door as if the sentiments had not already rung true. She knew Allison was right. It did not change the fact that she felt the urge to flee with every fibre of her being. She longed for the comfort of throwing her arms around him, to live in the knowledge that he was safe and with her again. 

Allison continued stroking Charlotte’s head soothingly as she watched her crumble before her very eyes, and not for the first time. Allison felt the weight of her sister’s pains as tears and redness splotched her lovely face. Charlotte let her sister help her undress to her shift and tuck her tightly into the bed clothes as she buried her face despondently into the soft pillows. She wanted to smother herself into unfeeling as pain and grief wrenched inside her. Allison eyed her sister with regret and sympathy as she saw Charlotte’s hands fist in the sheets, nails and knuckles white as she fought the sobs that threatened to rack her body. 

She hurried to the kitchen, pouring another cup of tea which was luckily still warm. She reached into one of the cupboards and grabbed a small vial, long and thin but no larger than her little finger. The doctor had left it in her care after Charlotte’s miscarriage, intended to help her sleep and heal. She’d only given it to her once as the effect left Charlotte nearly catatonic and often too removed to eat much less stand for hours once the drug was supposed to have dissipated. 

Allison took a deep breath and hoped she was doing the right thing as she unstoppered the vial to tap four tiny drops into the teacup. Her heart raced as she dropped in two sugar cubes and stirred until they disappeared. To her surprise she felt very little guilt as Charlotte tipped back most of the cup, falling into unconsciousness before she could finish. 

It had been at Charlotte’s own insistence to not use the drug to aid her sleep. She had hated the numbing effects, to the point that sometimes when she woke she’d forgotten where she was and what had happened. What she’d lost. 

She knew it wasn’t what Charlotte wanted, but she also knew the strain of things were beginning to fray at her edges. Creating fissures in the strength that she’d always admired. Allison was worried what her sister might do, knowing that in this state she was likely to do almost anything. Likely to go mad and break herself trying to get out of the cage she’d built around herself.

Allison’s hammering heart slowed as the minutes passed, knowing Charlotte was in a deep sleep and would hopefully remain so well into the following morning. It was the only way she could think to keep everything from rattling to pieces. She remained in the kitchen as James entered the house without a word, kicking off his boots by the door and loosening the ties of his clothes before collapsing into the chaise. He made no attempt to enter his room and did not speak a word to Allison as he took the pillow she handed him and threw two woolen blankets over him. “There’s likely to be a chill tonight.” She said quietly to which he nodded thankfully before passing into his own abyss of burdened sleep.

Not for the first time Allison lay awake most of the night wondering if she was doing the right thing. If maybe somewhere she had misstepped or if there was something she could do now to help Charlotte unfurl the mess they were all in. She thinks about the man in the next room, of his lovely face and sweet nature. She could have fallen in love with a man like that. Anyone could and a small part of her was angry with Charlotte for the choices she’d made, though she knows exactly why she made them and understands. 

Even though, she thinks, there’s very little she might’ve done differently. 

.

.

.

.

Eliza had been waiting for him when Sidney had returned from his visit with Charlotte. She’d been in his study, knowing that was where he always went first, lounging in the chair behind his desk. She cradled a small sherry glass in one hand, the picture of delicate femininity but with a suspicious air of serenity as she stared out the window. 

“How is Mrs. Stringer?” She asked, entirely unperturbed. Or so she pretended. Sidney shrugged off his coat wordlessly and threw it over the back of a nearby chair. She watched as muscles in his jaw tensed as he began to pour himself a drink, and she knew he was debating what to say. To lie or defend himself.

“Does it matter?” She had to admit that she was surprised by his response, which was probably why she flung her glass at him- missing him entirely but still having the desired effect. Anger bloomed across his face as he turned to face her fully. "She is a friend who has suffered a terrible loss. I went to give her some comfort."

Eliza looked at him through slitted eyes like a snake, as though she saw through his veneer. "Doesn't she have a husband for that?" She said coldly. "A sister? Friends? Or is your particular consolation so invaluable?"

Sidney felt as if he were looking at her through murky waters. Like she was a creature cloaked in suspicion and deceit. He did not recognize her. It struck him then that he was in fact lying to her, that he was guilty of all she accused him of. He set his full glass back down, the amber liquid sloshing to splatter against the surface beneath. 

She might not have known the whole truth of his relationship with Charlotte, but what she suspected was damning enough. She'd seen the longing looks, his frequent absences and general demeanor of both affection toward Charlotte and envy shown toward Mr. Stringer.

"I cannot remove her from my life. ” He said simply. “I’m sorry.”

To his surprise she smirked and leaned back in her chair, her posture relaxing again. “Your error is thinking I am negotiating.”

“The past seasons have been successful. We’ll have another… we can divorce and-”

She scoffed. “And you can run back to your whore? How do you plan to solve the problem of sweet Mr. Stringer? Murder perhaps? Bribery?” Eliza spat the words out as sharp as any blade. He slammed his hands on the desk, bearing down on her with his intimidating stance. For her part at least, she did not blink or flinch. She hid herself well, her only tell a slight tightening of her small mouth and change in breathing.

“I can give you a divorce. In time I can return your investment with interest.”

She laughed, a sound entirely devoid of mirth or any feeling really. Eliza leaned back, eyeing Sidney with disdain. “I will not be humiliated.” She began, her tone pointed and demanding his rapt attention. “I didn’t just bring money into this marriage, Sidney, I brought connections. Investors. My father owns the bank that holds Tom’s debt. I wonder what would happen if those investors left with me? If society suddenly decided it was too dull and dreary for any sort of holiday?” She paused, a breath of danger in her voice. “What if the bank was suddenly to decide Tom was a bad investment, increasing the interest on his debts? What if the town found out sweet little Charlotte was a harlot out to steal other women’s husbands?”

Eliza watched Sidney’s eyes darken to nearly black as he trembled with virtual rage. She switched to a sickeningly sweet tone, pulling on a mask of faux innocence and feigned concern. “She would be ruined. Her husband could set her aside and she could be forced to do unspeakable things to keep herself. She probably wouldn’t even be able to return home, she’d be a stain on her family- her siblings... Tom could be jailed if he defaulted on his payments.... Sanditon would fall to ruin, a dream withering to dust and ash… I suppose, Sidney, this all depends on you. On what you do next.”

“Do not threaten me!” He bellowed at her, his hands tightened on the edge of his deskand she could see his muscles flexing and rippling as he fought the urge to strangle her like the viper she was. 

“I’m not the one threatening them, Sidney. You are.” She stood and leaned across the desk to look him square in the eye, her arms braced before her- mirroring his stance. He reminded her of bulls she’d seen in Spain, massive powerful creatures. Always aware of their confinement. Always at the mercy of their captures. Regardless of their power, of their size or determination… Once caught they were mere shadows of their former thunderous selves.

Eliza leaned forward, close enough that his hot breath swept over her face and she welcomed the fear and thrill it sent through her. Fueling her along with her now venomous hatred of Charlotte. “I only want what you promised. I want a doting husband. I want to be the envy of society. THE lady of Sanditon. I want wealth and status and security…”

She leaned infinitesimally closer. “I don’t care how you do it, in a raft made of twigs or in your finest carriage.... You will send her away… Send her far away, Sidney, or I will bring heaven and earth down on you.”

.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry for the long wait (i saw the twitter threads lol). On a side note you should know I have a fic on ff.net that I've been working on since like 2009 that gets sporadically updated like once maybe twice a year. If you think you've had it bad, imagine how pissed off those kids are. It's not a threat, I swear. I just thought it was a little funny.
> 
> Anywhoo, I vow not to abandon this one and maybe long term goal: go back and cap off the older ones before i go senile. Fingers crossed.
> 
> I hit a little writer's block with this one, I kind of wrote myself into a corner and had some trouble trying to figure a way out as well as find the inspiration again. Turns out bingewatching/reading source material is helpful. This was another burst chapter so please forgive me if there's some errors.


	14. Chapter 14

.

Morning dew lay frozen on the blades of grass and crunched like fracturing glass with her every step. Allison’s breath pulled forth like little clouds as she pulled herself forward toward Sidney’s estate. If there was a sun it was tucked behind thick silver clouds that blanketed the sky overhead. She pulled her shawl tighter around herself as her mind idly wandered during the little journey.

To her surprise James was gone before she woke and Charlotte, thankfully, remained in a deep sleep. Her mouth had quirked a little at the blankets James had clumsily folded and left on the end of the chaise. Allison refolded them and set them aside before quickly pinning her hair up and throwing on her clothes. Charlotte had not stirred once.

All the same Allison still pressed a cool hand to her sister’s warm forehead and left a little note on her nightstand in case Charlotte woke before she returned. Allison pulled her arms tight around herself as she began to make her way. She took comfort in things like that. In preparedness. It kept her mind from wandering like it did now. Wondering what waited for her at the estate atop the hill. What answers she might receive, what scene might greet her, would she be turned away?

The house loomed ever closer with every step, windows reflecting the dreary landscape surrounding it. In the distance she had known it was large, but the closer she came the more imposing it felt- as though it were leering over her. Daring her to keep pressing forward. She was startled when she realized she’d reached the front door, as if it had suddenly appeared before her. 

Her heart pounded inside her and she took a deep breath before rapping the door knocker hard three times. It suddenly occurred to her the hour and she wondered if any of the house had even risen yet. She waited a few minutes and lifted her hand again to knock but froze as the heavy door pulled open, sucking in a gust of cold air as it did. 

An old woman stood before looking bristled but attempting to keep an air of civility as she waited for Allison to state her purpose. “Good morning ma'am. I’ve come to visit with Mr. Parker. I have some private business I must discuss with him.”

The old woman frowned. “He is indisposed, madame. Could you return later in the day, perhaps?” 

Allison bit her lip and looked upward toward the windows overhead, deciding quickly how to move forward. She stepped closer to the woman and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Is Mrs. Parker home?”

Allison gauged the old woman’s reaction attentively, seeing how her expression darkened slightly as she nodded resolutely. “Yes, but she is asleep. She won’t be roused before ten, unless the matter is urgent.”

Allison nodded knowingly, able to see the distaste felt for the lady of the house in the minor exchange. “I am concerned for Mr. Parker and have some news he would be very keen to hear as soon as possible. Is there a chance you could take me to see him… without disturbing the house and Mrs. Parker?” The woman gave Allison a worried look. “I swear, he will want to see me. Tell him, Miss Heywood has come with a message. If he sends me away I will leave, I promise.”

The woman’s face softened and she shook her head before replying quietly, “There is no need. I will take you to him.” To which Allison let go a soft sigh of relief as she was ushered inside and led up a winding staircase. 

His home was brighter than she’d expected, pale colored walls making rooms and the stairwell seem brighter than they were. Even though they crept quietly through the house, Allison felt as if they were in full view. She had expected to be taken down hidden hallways and through dark interconnected rooms. It lent an even stranger feeling to the entire endeavor. Giving the sense that there was no point in hiding from anyone. As though all inhabitants were in fact hiding themselves. 

From others...

From each other.... 

From all the world that lay beyond its crisp white front steps.

The way was short but she couldn’t recall the steps or turns she’d taken. She only knew that she nearly trampled the old woman when she stopped suddenly and said, “I’ll wait here. To escort you back out.” He paperlike skin creased as she turned the knob and opened a heavy wooden door, its material nearly black even in all the brightness filtering in. Allison stepped into the darker room, her heart skipping as the door was pulled shut swiftly behind her.

She took a deep breath, attempting to regain her composure, “Mr.P-... Sidney?”

There was a grunt and her sight adjusted to the dim light to see him sitting on the floor beside one of the curtained windows. She could see the thin ribbons of sunlight catching the top of his head as he shifted in the darkness. To her relief he did not appear dead, but from the scent on the air she deduced he’d been drinking. She took off her gloves as she hurried over to him, huffing in annoyance as she went.

Allison could not find her sympathy in the moment. She flung the drapery aside with careless abandon, a corner bumping him as the room came into view around them. His study, she deduced. Biting her tongue at seeing his slumped and groaning form more clearly, Allison moved around the room pulling open every curtain she could angrily.

“Damn you.” He muttered weakly as she marched back over to his side, tucking her gloves in her skirts and kneeling on the ground before him. She grabbed him roughly and shoved him into a sitting position. Normally she would have felt guilty, but at the moment he was the source of all her frustrations it seemed and she wanted him to know it. 

“Yes, damn me. All the way to hell and back…” Her voice trailed off as she got a good look at him. At his red rimmed eyes and a general appearance of utter defeat. She recalls a night not long ago, when there’d been a horrible storm in Willingdon. She thought the house would be upended. So did her father and that was why he’d made them sleep in the grain cellar beneath the house that night. When the thunder and rains had passed and they’d finally emerged, she saw the devastation was not as bad as she had thought. However, the mill at the edge of their property- the one Charlotte could often be found atop of, reading and dreaming. It was in shambles. Entirely beyond repair, they’d had to have it stripped down to its bones and rebuilt.

Sidney reminded her of the sad little windmill. Looking at her broken and lost, battle-scars coloring every inch of him. As if to say, ‘I tried but it wasn’t enough’. 

She didn’t try to take the glass or drink from him as Charlotte had that night of the ball. It would have been to no use as both lay empty before him. “I wanted to come…” he began, struggling for the words as he refused to look at her. Afraid to see those eyes, that face, so much like Charlotte’s. So many reminders he wasn’t ready to face. Not yet. “I couldn’t.”

Allison shifted, sliding her legs out from under her as she waited for him to speak. “I am your envoy, Mr. Parker.” She said and he felt the abrasiveness there. The blunt edge of a painful knife. “What message of disappointment am I to further lay at my sister’s feet? A change of heart? Another obstacle? Indecision wearing the cowl of cowardice?”

Sidney didn’t fight her. The words sat in his chest like gunpowder. To open his mouth- to reveal the truth- would be to cast the spark to it. To burn the story to its last page, no redemption. No happily ever afters. He finally turned to look into her scathing gaze, though he could see trepidation underneath it. As if the only way she knew to find the truth was to cut it out, to create a wound and wrench it forth if she must. And for a moment, before he spoke, he thought how odd she wore her fear. Not in its true form, but not in malice either- the way he and Eliza wore theirs. 

“I was a fool.” He said quietly, though the brusque timber of his voice still seemed to startle the quiet around them. 

“Why?”

He hung his head, flipping the upturned glass and decanter beside him as he spoke. “I thought saving everyone was within my power. I thought, if I could play the right pieces, I could fix… everything.”

Catching his meaning, to his complete and utter surprise, she had pulled at precisely the right thread. “What cannot be fixed?”

He smirked at her, having a fleeting realization that he might forever be at the mercy of his underestimation of women- or perhaps it was just the Heywood women in particular. He wasn’t sure. Sidney explained as succinctly as he could Eliza’s threats, how he tried all night to imagine his way around them. Only to find that there was no way around it. Any of it. She held too many cards and he had too many weaknesses. Too many vulnerabilities he could not defend by himself. 

Allison for her part, sat and listened. Absorbing every ounce of information he could give, hoping it would let her see something he couldn’t. A path to happiness for everyone. Even if Sidney could divest himself of Eliza’s poisonous hold, even if Charlotte could break James’ heart and find a way to annul their own marriage- Eliza still had her connections. Even if Sidney and Charlotte simply picked up and ran away, Eliza’s had as much as vowed to destroy all the people they left behind… 

She felt weary as she looked at him through sorrowful eyes and an almost guilty expression. Guilt that even she could not help anyone in the situation. He looked at her with, to her mild surprise, empathy and concession as he whispered. “I know.” She wanted to believe he was the selfish one, the manipulator. It would be so much easier if he was. If she could find him the villain and simply shake her sister from his spell… No, it was so much more complicated than that. 

“Where will you send us?”

“Us?”

Allison shrugged. “They are fond of me.” She said confidently, shifting to peer out the window behind him. “James does not seem to mind the extra wheel and… I cannot leave my sister to flounder as I feel she might.”

“She’s stronger than you think.” He offered to which Allison shook her head softly.

“No, she’s much like you in that manner. Very good at marching on, despite the circumstances. A good soldier, unwilling to tend to wounds even if it might save them...” She reached for Sidney’s hand, his large fingers flexing under hers. Not in tenderness but in insecurity if he felt worthy of the comfort she intended to offer. “The poets are always comparing love to roses and sunshine and things so lovely we forget that they are special- because they are so commonplace. I think, when I see the two of you, it is much more a war.” Regret crept into his features, darkening him further, but she clenched her hand firmly around his and clarified. “You don’t break yourself for flowers or a pretty face, Mr. Parker. You do it because… to not do so, would mean to live in darkness. Your love is to me like a war because it is worthy of risking everything you might want for yourself. It is so difficult to see the bloodshed that has become of you both… But perhaps find comfort that it was real. Not a pretty dream or secret wish. You would not feel so deeply if you did not love so much. As much as she loves you.”

Sidney let her words soothe him, trying to hold onto them. Seeking out what solace could be had in them. He thinks distantly that in another lifetime he would have loved to call her family, and how in this life he would settle for a friend. “Can I ask yet another favor of you?”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apology to you for that long wait. WARNING this is another explicit chapter.

.

Charlotte woke in a daze. She blinked over and over again, attempting to clear the haze of her vision and cobwebs around her mind. A dip in the corner of the bed startled her, but before she could begin to question it she felt a cool glass being pressed against her lips and she recognized her sister’s voice floating through the din. It wasn’t until the water slid down her throat that she realized her own thirst and nearly choked on a mouthful as she tried to pull more in.

Allison stroked her hair as she tried to right herself. She felt the idleness of her limbs like creaky floorboards as she struggled to sit up. Reaching slowly, as if through a fog, for the glass her sister held out to her. Once she’d upended its contents, the water running down her throat like liquid relief, she turned to Allison and was relieved to finally see her so clearly. Charlotte had been on the verge of asking her what had happened, but Allison demurely held up a hand.

“I’ve only just returned.” It was then that she saw the regret on Allison’s face and she listened dejectedly as Allison recounted the situation as it had been relayed to her. A nausea and very still kind of defeat came over Charlotte with every passing detail.

She felt as though the information were settling around her in pieces. She could not truly grasp them all but there they were. Before her, clear as day. Fate had sought to make an opponent of her for whatever reason and now, after all this struggling against it she felt subjugated. As if she were a warrior in those final moments before dying, when the end was close and she could feel death’s cold reach for her soul.

When Allison said that tomorrow he would meet her, she knew it was not to plan or rail against their fate anymore… it would be to say goodbye.

That night James returned home, to her surprise brimming with excitement. Sidney, though not delivering the news himself, had framed their exile in the kindest manner he could. Mr. Mourant offered his small acreage of land in France. They would act as his tenants while he continued the work in Sanditon. James, now with nearly all the current construction of Sanditon in his repertoire, could pursue what Mr. Mourant promised were multitudinous opportunities. There were ancient structures in need of repair. Lakeside estates being built for the newly wealthy. James was nearly bouncing in his seat like a young boy and she smiled her best at his excitement. All the while trying not to think of Sidney, how it would feel again to be set aside- no room for her in his world. Surrendering him to Eliza yet again.

She even agreed as he knelt before her and took her hands in his, vowing that they could start over. That they could leave Sanditon behind them and truly move forward.

“I would like that very much…” She said. Though, for the first time, she acknowledged to herself the lie that it was. That if given the chance she would break James’ heart and run away with Sidney. Charlotte could admit to herself now, in the darkness she’d managed to construct around herself, that loving James did not compare to loving Sidney.

In a thousand lifetimes, even if she knew they’d all end in failure, she would still choose Sidney Parker. For whatever amount of time they were allowed. She chose him. Even as she lay awake watching the form of her sleeping husband beside her, her fingers gently pushing back blonde curls as his breathing evened out under her touch, she knew that she could never love him enough. That she was no better than Eliza. And in fact, to her perception she might be so much worse…

At least Eliza was not the one having an affair. Eliza was only asking her husband to keep the vows he’d made to her.

It was good that she was being sent away, she decided. Although heavy heartedly. She would be able to renew her efforts in being a good wife. She would find some way to shoulder the burden not only of her own unhappiness, but Sidney’s as well.

The next morning she feigned sleep until James had gone. She cleaned and dressed herself, her mind oddly at ease. Charlotte did not see her sister once as she gathered herself, though she distinctly heard the creaking of bed springs from the guest room in which Allison slept. Charlotte added it to the list of crimes she’d committed since coming to Sanditon, the corruption of a beloved sister- her co conspirator.

She pulled her coat around herself and headed outside.

To her surprise a carriage was waiting, one of his she knew. She didn’t care if anyone were watching her then, if they recognized it though it went unmarked and understated in its finery. She got in without question and let it take her where it would. Charlotte watched the scenery tumble and roll past and by the brevity of the journey and the quick glimpse of his estate as they descended down the cliffs, she knew she was being taken to his private beach.

The sun was tucked behind a thin smattering of clouds, it’s rays setting the ocean's surface to a blanket of glittering horizon. It looked like a lovely day, unusual for so early in the year and therefore particularly special by nature. A day like this, before, might have had her light on her feet from dusk ‘til dawn. A day like this should have been brimming with possibility. Now, as she descended the carriage and saw his visage across the expanse of white sand, she was only astutely aware of its mocking. Today was a day of loss, of mourning at its essence.

There was no caution she cared to express when she saw him. The tall sharp cut of his dark figure in the distance sent a shiver along her skin. Despite all this, a thrill went through her as she quickened her pace, charging forward toward him. “Sidney!” She called desperately her voice nearly lost against the soft sea air.

He turned at the sound and was able to catch her as she threw her arms around him, kicking up sand as she practically leaped into his embrace. She felt Sidney’s strong warm arms tighten around her as she clutched onto him. Charlotte felt him press his face in the crook of her shoulder, her hair soft against his cheek and the tip of his nose tickling the column of her neck. Charlotte tucked herself around him, feeling the gentle scratch of his beard and heat of his skin.

There were no pains to restrain themselves. To hold back for the sake of society and onlookers. The world fell away around them and they could hold each other as they always wanted to. There was no Eliza, no James, no one to judge or tear them apart. No world clawing to pull them back- back to reality, to sanity, to promises and obligation…

“I love you.” She said and Sidney tried to memorize the feel of her lips against his cheek as she spoke. Her warm breath dancing over his skin and the softness of her touch, her voice a gentle thrum against his chest as he held her to him tightly. Sidney let his hand run down the column of her spine, the slip of layers of threadbare cotton beneath his long fingers as he pulled her impossibly closer.

Sidney had told her so often that he loved her, felt it in his nightmares and daydreams so distinctly and constant that the words rang hollow and unsaid on his tongue- they could only cut them now. If they could have been together, happily and undisturbed, he thinks he might never tire of saying them to her. As they were now, he felt cruel in saying them, felt like a selfish villain thinking about the time they’d had in the glen. Convincing her to say them aloud, to breathe life into this curse he’d lain on their lives.

Charlotte felt the unease in him, her feet dangling just above the sand as he held onto her like a raft in a storm. She pulled back just enough, as much as she could in his firm embrace, his nose pressing into her cheek as she looked sadly at his closed eyes. She tried to memorize him for a moment: the dark lashes and tanned skin, laugh lines gently flaring from the corners of his eyes and the faintest touch of freckles peppered along the bridge of his nose. “A thousand lifetimes wouldn’t have been enough, Sidney Parker…” A small sad smile creased his features at her words, at how she could read his mind when once she found him so much a mystery that she was constantly shouting at him.

“I will love you, Charlotte Heywood, much much longer than that.” His mouth slid over hers, like the sun kissing the watery horizon every morning and night- as if there were no other function, no other place it belonged. She kissed him back, long and deep, the taste of salt on her tongue. She wondered distantly if the tears were hers or his or from the sea she wished would reach out and pull them under- how willingly they would go if they did not have to part…

Sidney set her down carefully on her feet and she let him lead her along the little stretch of beach toward the little lighthouse. She glanced back at his estate behind her, wondering if Eliza was in there somewhere, waiting for Sidney to return willingly to the shackles she’d set for him. Charlotte's hands flexed firmly around Sidney’s at the thought, as though she could leave her imprint there, a mark to sign that he was hers and she his. No matter the distance or barriers between them.

**_Set me as a seal upon thine heart,_ **

**_as a seal upon thine arm:_ **

**_for love is strong as death;_ **

**_jealousy is cruel as the grave:_ **

**_the coals thereof are coals of fire,_ **

**_which hath a most vehement flame_**...

Her mother had read the bible aloud and often, though Charlotte had never cared for most of the sanctimoniousness of it all. She remembers asking her mother to read the little passage to her over again, until she could recite backwards if asked… She never remembered the story from which it came or much less anything that came after it. She only remembered thinking how lovely it would be to fall in love so tragically, to feel love’s keen sting…

How silly she had been.

How naïve.

The words floated around her head as they climbed up the spiraling stairs to a little room. There was a little bed and desk and nothing else. The ceiling was uniquely domed and she smiled at how light filled the small room with warmth. “It was the only place-” He began apologetically but Charlotte pulled herself up to the tips of her toes to cut him off with a kiss.

“I don’t care.” She said simply as she pulled impatiently at the buttons of his coat.

She had thought if they got the chance again they might savor it, that they might take time to undress and admire and memorize one another. She’d underestimated their desire.

Sidney pulled off his coat as she pulled his shirt from his trousers, pushing it up over his chest and head. She felt him shiver as her hands grazed his bare skin as she tried to divest him of his clothing as quickly as possible. Her hands pulled at the buttons of his trousers and she laughed when he tugged her close to reach the column of buttons down her back- her hands effectively pinned between them. Charlotte took the opportunity to let them explore there, feeling the solid flex of his muscles as they jumped under her touch. Sidney made quick work of the buttons, his mouth sliding along the shell of her ear and down her neck as he peeled it from her shoulders. It pooled at her feet and her fingers tangled with his to undo her chemise.

Sidney stopped briefly to pull off his boots and when he looked up she’d already pulled her shift over her head, it slipped from her fingers to the floor as their eyes met. She watched as his gaze took her in and she thought briefly of when she’d seen him on the beach, just as naked as she was now. Charlotte knew there was a flush blooming along her skin and she wasn’t sure if it was from the way that memory had haunted her since its occurrence, how she recalled it often to try and memorize his beautiful form, or if it was how he was looking at her now. As enamored of her as she’d been of him.

He stepped forward, reaching out to pull the pins from her hair so that the waves tumbled down over her shoulders. He traced the curls reverently as they coiled down her arms and framed her breasts. Charlotte held her breath as his fingers traced her curves, his strong hands unyielding as he stroked her skin. He tried to memorize her every reaction, what made her shudder or blush or gasp. Pieces of a story that would steal into his dreams later when she was too far gone from him to even speak to or glimpse from afar.

Sidney smiled when she lunged at him, capturing his mouth in that impatient and adventurous way that could only be descriptive of her. She could be so fearless sometimes it took his breath away and set his heart to racing. It was a fire that sang in his veins when she admitted with her body and expression that she was his and he was hers and that if all the world insisted in crushing them beneath its weighted rules and barbed irony, that fact was unchangeable…

_Let them come_ … he thought.

She helped him push his trousers down over his hips and he kicked them away before pulling her back toward him, stumbling them backward so he could lay her down on the bed. It was a modest bed that barely fit them both but she didn’t care. Neither of them did. Charlotte edged herself up the bed and Sidney followed, kissing along her body as he did. She felt lust and love and desire all battling inside her. She tried to pull him up to her, so that she could kiss him properly.

He took her hands, pushing them away gently so that one lay splayed over her stomach and the other, guided by his hand, cupped her breast as he continued to trail his lips over the curve of her hip and down toward her center. Charlotte felt the air rush out of her as he hooked his hands behind her knees tightly and pulled them apart so that she was exposed to him completely. She felt an inch of hesitancy, a fleeting feeling of trepidation. Then his mouth was on her, in a more intimate way than she could have ever imagined. She cried out at the sensation, feeling as if her body were crumpling beneath it.

Sidney held strong, pinning her hips down as she writhed and arched beneath him and he reveled in it. It spurred him on to feel her coming undone under his touch. He chanced a look up to see her face but instead saw her hands clutching at her own body, nails biting into her own soft flesh and fueling her own desire. His veins sang in triumph and he began again, his tongue exploring her expertly and being rewarded with every cry and call of his name as she came undone.

Charlotte buried her fingers in the short strands of his hair as she willed her breathing to return to normal. She wasn’t a virgin anymore. She hadn’t been for sometime and for some reason, with Sidney, she wasn’t shy about asking for what she wanted. If anything her brazenness seemed to fuel him and back and forth they went until it seemed they might burn everything down around them. She could feel him climbing over her and up the bed so that they were face to face. His fingers stroked the planes and contours of her face like the needle of a compass searching for home, over the dip over her chin and the hollows of her cheeks up to the bridge of her nose and along her brows.

“Charlotte?” He asked quietly, wondering if she’d fallen asleep. She blinked up at him with bleary eyes, looking at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. He was about to say something else but she decided to take charge instead. She reached up to capture his mouth again and simultaneously pushed at his shoulders. Guiding him so that he lay on his back and she positioned herself over him, legs on either side of his ribs and in all his life he didn’t think anyone had ever been so bold with him.

Sidney watched her with rapt attention, completely unaware of every move before she made it. She’d succeeded in catching him as off-guard as he’d done to her moments before. Charlotte was beautiful, he’d known that the moment he saw her. Everything else, the much more rare pieces of her had taken longer to discover. She was an enigma to him, and he never tired of learning more about the fine crystalline details that created such a remarkable creature. He thought again that there was no one else that could ever be created that he would love as much as her, no one who fit so wonderfully in his soul and called it home.

As Sidney stared up at her in awe she took the moment to admire him. She’d seen him before, in all his godlike glory. Though, in the back of her mind, she knew this might be the last as she traced the chorded veins that pulsated and jumped under her ministrations. Her fingers glided up over his torso toward his neck and over his shoulders, down the length of his arms to his wrists. She lifted his hands to rest over her ribs, fingers splayed out toward her back and his thumbs grazing the underside of her breasts. It was her way of telling him that she liked it when he touched her there, having noticed in the encounters his touch seemed drawn to those particular places of her.

She didn’t hesitate or shrink away as she moved back to grasp him in her hand, the sound of his sharp inhale the only sound in the room as she guided him inside her body- not stopping until he was fully sheathed inside her. As her body adjusted to the intrusion she looked back to Sidney to see him looking at her with something she couldn’t describe but she felt her eyes sting with tears she refused to shed. Instead she leaned down to kiss him again, her hair falling around their heads like a curtain as he ran his tongue over her lower lip.

Soon they were moving in tandem, her hips rolling into his every thrust- slow and then quickly again. Over and over again even after climaxes had come and gone again. Eventually he saw his own exhaustion mirrored in her and pulled her down to him in a tight embrace. He could hear her whispering his name like a mantra against his neck as they curled into one another. She could fight back exhaustion no longer and he listened as her mumbled words faded to quiet breathing.

Sidney could not rescind into the drugging calm, sleep could not touch him. This was the dream he realized, the moment he did not ever want to have to wake from. She might’ve resigned themselves to their fate. Accepted things as they could never truly be. He could not. As much as he chastised himself for not letting go sooner, knowing it had made things worse, he could not go quietly into the night. Her sister had been right when she called him a soldier. A stubborn creature who would die bloodied and beaten on the battlefield… He decided he could find comfort in that, no matter how the ramparts raged at his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive me if this chapter feels a little uneven, I'm trying desperately to push through this writer's block. Also I think we can all be honest by now and I will admit that I do not proofread. I have very little patience for my own work. I hope someday that will change but alas its about twenty years in and its not looking great. Enjoy and again feel free to let me know of any continuity errors along the way if you catch them. I appreciate all of your support and devotion! 
> 
> Please don't leave me. <3


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna go out on a limb say we're gonna hit a bit of snowball momentum from here on out. I want to post the chapters as I finish them as we are very near the end (this time I mean it). I would like to give you all breathing room to absorb the work but there are other things I'm working on and of course reality calls. So I want to get this out before I get cluttered under other commitments or hit another block.
> 
> .

.

When she opened her eyes again it was to him tracing patterns along her shoulder. He stilled as she shifted, “I didn’t mean to wake you.” Though he wasn’t sure himself if that was entirely true.

“I want to be awake.” She whispered.

“How did you get this?” He asked, indicating a small but jagged white scar just above her shoulder blade. Low enough to be hidden by her gowns, depending on their modesty. He could feel her mouth curl into a smile against his chest.

“That’s an old one.” She shifted again, folding her arms over his chest and resting her chin as she tried to recall the memory for him and trying not to be distracted as his fingers combed her hair back from her face. “When I was ten, I think. We tied a rope from a tree to swing into the lake. We wore it out all summer until it snapped and I took the branch down into the water with me. It caught me in the shoulder on the way down.”

He frowned, not liking the idea of her being in pain or injured. Though he wasn’t surprised, he recalled the story Mary had told him of her climbing into their overturned carriage as if she were some fearless mountain woman. “Quite adventurous aren’t we?”

She squinted at him with accusation. “A pair it would seem.” She put out a finger along the ridge of his jaw, her nail tracing a thin and barely visible scar on its ridge- hidden by the faint scruff of his beard. She arched a brow and he knew he owed her a story.

“A boxing match, not my first but definitely a memorable one. It was from the first time I met Babington actually. We snuck off school grounds that night and in a drunken haze I challenged a stranger to a match. I won but he didn’t like that very much so when my back was turned he grabbed a chair and struck me with it.” Her eyes widened in alarm, and he endeavored to lighten the mood. “Luckily for me the chair was very poorly constructed. Didn’t even knock me out.”

Her eyes held a look of reprehension, as if she wanted to chastise him for being so careless. Charlotte thought very carefully for a moment, her voice so gentle he didn’t think he could bear it when she said, “Promise me you won’t be so reckless with yourself.” The implication being that she would be gone, no longer there to inhibit his worst tendencies. She was saying he must care for himself now.

He leaned forward to press his lips to her crown, the sweetness of her intentions twisting around his heart like barbed wire. The shadow of reality creeping in on them again. “I promise.” His voice rumbled like gravel and she tried to memorize the sound and feel of those vibrations as they rattled and hummed against her own skin. “You’ll like France, I think.” He said suddenly and she knew he did not mean it unkindly. Only that they were two people trying to point out the stars in the night sky, searching for glimpses of hope and happiness to distract them from the encroaching abyss.

“I’ve never been there.” She offered quietly. “I barely even got to see London when we were there.”

“Mourant’s home is in the countryside. Just beyond the city… There’s rolling hills and it seems as though the flowers never stop blooming there.”

“I’ll miss the sea.” He watched her gaze shift to the window, listened to the sound of the waves that had become like a hum in the background of their lives. He hardly noticed it anymore.

“There’s lakes.” He offered. “Lakes like you’ve never seen, the waters are a hundred shades of blue. Sanditon seas couldn’t compare.”

“I can barely understand french, much less speak it… You should have sent us to Rome, at least I’d have a leg up with the latin.”

“Rome is too far.” She tried not to look at him but she felt his large hand running up her back. They were still fooling themselves it seemed. Even entertaining the idea that he could come to her or she to him after this. She bit her lip and he said, “You’ll go there someday, wherever you wish.”

“We would have been great travelers wouldn’t we?” She said wistfully.

“Yes. We’d even take the children and show them the world.” She smiled again, escaping into the dream with him.

“How many?”

“As many as we could stand.”

“I liked having so many siblings, though I think we were not as close as I would have liked. Duty forced us apart, before I left I felt more like a caretaker than a sibling… I think Allison and I are so close because we were able to help each other so much, she caught what I couldn’t carry. She was always just behind me, this annoyingly intelligent little shadow...”

His laugh was like a burst of energy, infectious as she burrowed into him. “We wouldn’t let that happen. We’d raise them all equally, teach them to be fair and kind and helpful… Or we could have just one, give all that love and attention to a single child who would never want for anything or feel excluded.”

The nagging voice in her head reminded her that it didn’t matter what she wanted, what either of them wanted. She gripped him a little tighter and ignored the voice, it could not have her just now. Not yet. “We’d have a house though, somewhere quiet and away from the city. Where the children could play…”

“You could have your own den, a little library for all your books.”

“We could live near the sea, somewhere you could teach them to sail and fish and swim… I’d teach my sons to dance.” She said suddenly. “I remember growing up, going to balls and wanting desperately to dance but the boys always seemed too shy to ask.”

Sidney smiled against her soft hair. “Young ladies can be very intimidating, but I agree. We would teach them that rejection is not failure but another opportunity to try again.”

“That’s beautiful.”

Sidney turned his gaze out the window then too. “My father taught me that, I would like to teach that to my children someday.” He paused. “And what of the girls? I would have no idea how to begin with a girl beyond giving her everything she could ever ask for… ponies, ribbons, a castle.”

Charlotte laughed and then said, so sincerely that it struck a chord in both of them. “Little girls only want their father’s love and their mother’s approval.”

“What if she does ask for a castle?” He asked, attempting to lighten her spirit.

She made a little humming sound as she thought. “If she asks for a castle, I hope we would teach her how to build one. With words or her mind, to paint one or imagine one from pebbles and clouds… If she asks for a pony I hope that we’d teach her to ride stallions, none of that side saddle business. I hope she learns to ride so fast she thinks she might fly.”

“Safely, of course?”

“Of course.” She laughed a little. “If she asks for ribbons… I hope we teach her that bonds are only as strong as we make them. That there’s nothing she can’t release herself from or hold tightly to. That it only matters what she chooses to hold to and what to release… that there’s no shame in letting things go sometimes.”

They both began to imagine those children… that house… those adventures. A future they could have done so much with. It shone before them like a glittering horizon, just out of reach and never to be held. Charlotte shut her eyes tightly, trying to let go of those beautiful dreams. They rushed forward anyway, falling away from her- down her cheeks salty and wet. Sidney reached out, his hand under her chin so that they could look at each other clearly. There were no words, nothing he could say to mend their wounds that seemed fatal anyway.

Instead he leaned forward and kissed her deeply. She felt him carefully maneuver around her so that she lay beneath him again, opening herself up to take him inside her again. They spent hours afterward talking again, about their childhoods. How she had always wanted to learn to sword fight and he’d never been any good at it. How he’d always been better with his hands and mind and how she loved to run fast and fall asleep outside reading about far off places. How they both loved to swim and both preferred sugar to honey in their tea.

He told her how when he was little he liked to sneak into the kitchen to watch the servants cook and how when his mother insisted he go away to school like Tom, it felt as though his world were coming to an end. She told him how her father first taught her to hunt the winter he broke his leg, how she’d come home covered in mud and blood from a rabbit she’d managed to catch and her mother had muttered that no gentlemen would want a girl so unladylike. They told each other of wounds and triumphs, of beliefs and dreams and fears.

They talked as they watched the sun dip low outside the little window, warm sharp rays melting away to soft orange glow. Both knowing there would be suspicion beyond the little lighthouse if they tried to steal more time, that there would be people missing them. She didn’t want it to matter anymore. All she wanted was the splendor they could have, to take as much as they could carry.

Once the sun disappeared the spell would be broken... it would all be over then.


	17. Chapter 17

.........

Charlotte was the first to leave. Ambling along the sand, staring out toward the sea and back to the little lighthouse. She could see him in the window, watching as she trudged away to the carriage that still waited. He would not rush back. He decided he would not give Eliza anymore than necessary. There was no illusion to uphold between them anymore. He would not deny his infidelity to her and he believed truly that she would not ask. Eliza had made it clear what she cared about. 

Charlotte didn’t bother to fix her hair or right her clothes as she departed. She almost wanted to be caught. Hoped James would be there, to call her all the horrible things she knew she was. To set her aside, dismiss her from his house and his life, never to return. Instead, as the footman helped her down from the carriage all she saw was Allison disappearing and reappearing through windows as she packed their things in trunks. James had told her the furniture belonged to the house and implied he would take no more charity from the Parkers, most specifically Sidney. He explained they only needed to take their clothes and sentimental things that could travel easily with them. Everything else could remain, for Sidney or the next tenant to do with what they wished.

She imagined a piece of her would remain with those things they could not take with them. That she might haunt the silvery tea set or bed where she lost her first child. A part of her tortured heart would remain there forever, she decided. One more thing she could not carry with her.

Charlotte tilted her head as she watched her younger sister through the windows. She was lovely, her silky nearly black hair pinned away from her face as she paced focused and single minded about the house. She and Charlotte had the same eyes, their mother’s eyes. Eyes that bespoke mystery and indefinable nature. Her build was more slight, almost waifish. She wondered if that was what made Allison seem so much more graceful, as if every move was a dance and she required no partner to be absolutely captivating.

Allison would be smarter, she thought. Allison would not follow her mistakes or allow herself to be batted around by fate as it were a cat and she a helpless feather.

When Charlotte finally found the resolve to cross her own threshold, Allison stilled what she was doing and looked at her with pity. She said nothing as she led her sister to her bedroom where the bath had been set up. This time Charlotte cared for herself, undressing and bathing quickly. There was no catatonic state she would slip into again, she tired of succumbing to the sadness. She vowed to find that resolve again in herself. If Sidney could be strong, she owed to him and to herself and everyone that mattered to do the same.

James returned that evening none the wiser. If anything he seemed on edge with excitement for the departure. Like her, he’d never strayed very far home and to him everything beyond Sanditon offered the most promising possibility. He had promised before to stay and finish Sanditon, for his father’s sake. To design a city on his own. They both knew the truth however, his future was not in the small seaside town.

The next day she was surprised by the number of people that came to port to bid them farewell. Especially on such short notice. She had wondered before if anyone had felt suspicious of their speedy departure. She was confirmed when Mary went to hug her goodbye, a look of pity and worry as she stumbled almost exasperatedly over her words. Charlotte wondered how much she knew and what she only suspected.

Ever since Allison had relayed the news of her banishment, she’d only thought of Sidney. She thought little of the town and less of the people she would be leaving behind. She was surprised Georgiana had come to see her off, along with Arthur and Diana. Charlotte knew she had been an absent friend, and whispered to the younger girl as they embraced that she wished she had done better.

James had had his own farewell with the workmen the day before and she felt a deep sense of loss as he bid teary farewell to so many people, people he’d know most of his life. He knew Sanditon before it had its name, before it tore her whole world apart. There was solace that James did not know he was being forced out. He was not being banished but released and allowed to grow unencumbered.

As the ship pulled slowly away from the dock she smiled at him lovingly and tucked her arm in his. He did not turn to her though, his eyes remained fixed on the people waving to them as they grew smaller and smaller. Until they were entirely indistinguishable in the distance. They remained on deck long after that, watching their world grow around them, before their very eyes. Until all they could see was calm ocean and endless horizon.

She had put on a smile and a brave face, all the while she’d felt sick to her stomach. Feeling every breath of distance from Sidney as it grew larger and larger. She told him not to come. That if she saw him, even tucked and hidden in the throng of people, she might jump in the water and swim back to him. She’d made him promise, but it hadn’t made it any easier.

The journey wasn’t long but the days bled into one another and when they finally arrived at Calais, Allison had to remind her how many had passed. “Nearly five.” She’d said, annoyingly unperturbed by the journey. Charlotte did not fancy herself a delicate woman, but she was not too proud to beg James for them to find a place to rest soon. If only for the night. He’d laughed and given in without protest.

It seemed as soon as she woke however that they were on the road again. By the time they arrived in a town somewhere between Versaille and Paris only a few days had passed. In retrospect she’d been surprised at how close it all was, though she’d known Sidney to travel in the area often and still manage to return to Sanditon not long after. It felt odd knowing it so viscerally now, that so many places she had only read about were just beyond her front door.

France was lovely. The house was lovely. They had servants and enough rooms that her sister could finally experience some distance and privacy from them. They passed a lake in their journey, it was so close and Sidney had been right. It looked as though it had been painted from someone else’s fantastical imagination. She wanted to be happy, to be bursting with joy and accept all these lovely things that seemed to be laid at her feet without hesitation.

It wasn’t just Sidney. She resigned herself that she would forever mourn that love. Charlotte knew it the moment the ship had peeled away from the dock in Sanditon, when she’d tucked her arm through his. He’d stiffened at her touch, just barely. And when he put his arm around her she felt as if there were a chasm of space between them. Even his smile did not reach his eyes anymore and it seemed as if there were essays of thoughts he were keeping to himself when she tried to speak to him.

She knew it was over before they’d settled on dry land. She knew she could not keep the charade any longer. One morning she came outside to where he sat. On a stone bench in a rather large garden. The birds and and the flowers rustled in the light breeze and early sunshine. They sat in silence for a moment before she spoke, “You’ll have all this yourself one day. Not loaned to you or forced on you… it’ll be entirely your own. I know it.”

He didn’t smile at her words. He knew her meaning. Her implication that into that beautiful future she painted for him… she would not follow. “You were the only thing I ever wanted.” He said firmly and she felt the shattered remains of her heart fissure that much further.

A tear rolled down her cheek, still resolved in her decision. She took a deep breath, speaking through her sorrow. “I love you James. Enough that I know I must stop hurting you…” She shook her head and reached out to lay her hand over his. “I have tied us tighter and tighter together, thinking that I owed it to you. That it would have been unkind to not return your affection but James.... I have been so much more cruel by keep you to me when-”

“You don’t love me.” He interrupted. Simple. Matter-of-fact. As if he’d seen it coming from miles away.

“Not as I know you deserve to be.” She didn’t say she knew of the kind of love he deserved, that anything less would bring about unnecessary pain.

“Will you go back to him then?” Her eyes flicked up to him in surprise. Though she should have known, he had always been more observant than she’d given him credit for. “Back to Sanditon… Will you be his mistress?”

She deserved that.

Charlotte shook her head. “No." She said honestly. "But I can’t stay either.”

He considered her for a moment, combing her features with his gaze before he turned to grasp her hands in his. Not in desperation or pleading, but almost conciliatory. As if he could not fight or pretend anymore either. It made her realize that he'd been doing it, fighting for her love, much longer than she'd been pretending to return it fully. And now he knew it too, and deep down he was tired. “I want to be angry with you. I want to hate you.” He said quietly. “I think I knew I lost you… a very long time ago.” Charlotte bit her lip to keep herself from shaking. He was a good man. It only reaffirmed how much she didn’t deserve him. How much more she would be stealing from him by staying.

They talk only a short while longer. Neither could begin to afford to petition for a divorce, and they knew they wouldn’t be granted one anyway. Charlotte explained that she’d thought it through. She would disappear. She would stay away and hidden long enough that he could be granted an annulment. In time he could even marry again. She told him she didn’t think she would ever return to England, that there was nothing for her there anymore.

James confided that he too was done with England. He asked where she did plan to go and Charlotte explained that she would travel south, to live by the sea again. James insisted that she could not travel alone, that she must allow him to travel with her to at least make sure she was safe wherever it was she decided to settle. Charlotte told him that she would not be alone, that her sister would come with her. She asked only for the money that the parkers had generously paid for her assistance with the accounts when Sidney had been gone.

James gave her the money and more, she suspected. He gave her a blade to keep tucked into her boot, though Allison swiftly snatched it away and tucked it into her skirt. James smiled at that and told the other girl that she would be deeply missed. It was a shame that they were parting company as they seemed to have become rather good friends. Though Charlotte also suspected that her sister was coming into her own, that she had a natural way with people that she never sacrificed herself and yet managed to become a confidant to anyone who met her. Charlotte was glad not to have to be without her.

Charlotte knew it was brazen to assume that two women might be perfectly safe traveling alone. She refused to let James sacrifice another minute of his life to her. He was smart however, he told her to keep her ring on to maintain a sense of propriety especially for Allison. They were less likely to be harassed if she did. And to her surprise he hired a guard to travel with them. He had inquired with the servants of Mourant's estate as to who could be trusted, both to keep the sisters safe as well as maintain discretion. He was an older gentleman but no less fierce looking with tanned skin, a burly build and a sort of look to his stare that discouraged interaction.

Charlotte did not expect the thrill that went through her as James closed the coach door behind them. The resounding click of the latch rang like a sigh of relief in her chest. As she held his gaze for as long as she could through the little window while they rode away. Allison grasped her sister’s hand tenderly and said encouragingly, “I am proud of you.”

Proud that Charlotte could, if not undo her crimes, at least do her best to right them. Even if that meant letting go of nearly everyone and everything she held dear. She did not want to have to live without them, but she knew that she could. If it meant that she could release people from her mistakes, so that they could move on- she realized now that she’d had the power to do that all along.

………

It takes weeks to reach Rome, but the things they see along the way are more remarkable than she could have dared to hope. Rolling hills and lakes and cathedrals taller than she ever thought possible. Statues so real it seemed as though persons and creatures merely stood infinitely still. She sends a letter to James assuring him that both she and Allison arrived safe and sound. That their man kept them safe and she now considered him a dear friend. Charlotte thanked James for all that he had done, not just in helping her leave but everything he’d done for her since the day they had met.

What she didn’t tell him was what she knew almost as soon as they arrived in Florence. She’d been standing in a Piazza with her sister, admiring a statue while their man procured rooms for the night. The statue was framed in a ring of light so bright and towering over her she could not make out the face. Briefly she thought of Sidney, that if the statue was not equal to him in handsomeness then he far exceeded it. An overwhelming ache descended on her as the scent of cured meats from a nearby vendor wafted over.

Her stomach had rolled familiarly and she only had enough time to run to a nearby alleyway as her body convulsed with heaving. She knew before it had stopped, before her sister could make her calm down and speak clearly. Charlotte knew she was with child again. That baby was not James’ this time, but undoubtedly Sidney’s.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this story may get capped off at 20 chapters. No promises but that is my goal so fingers crossed.


	18. Chapter 18

.

Charlotte felt the water bend and sway around her, warm and cool and so clear she thought her heart might break from its crystalline beauty. It ebbed and flowed around her midsection and burgeoning belly. Her heart would jump a little as the waves came pulling sweetly in, and so would the baby inside her. Its little feet skittering and skating against her stomach in a way that made Charlotte’s heart swell with love as it had not in a very long time. 

Predictably, the love for the child growing inside her inevitably drew her melancholy thoughts to its father. How for the past seven months she’d lived like a thief. Yet another thing stolen from Sidney Parker. Charlotte often found herself wondering where he was, what he was doing or thinking and if he was alright. In allowing herself to be banished she knew she had also forfeited the right to know the answers to those questions. It didn’t stop her from wondering, hoping, he was well. 

“Charlotte!” 

Charlotte turned at the sound of her sister’s voice calling from shore. Allison stood a short ways away, her slim figure donned in a dark red dress and her even darker hair pulling in the barely there breeze. To Charlotte she looked like a character from a poem, the woman who waits worriedly on abandoned shores. Her gaze always searching for something that no one else can see. Allison held a blanket in her hands as she waved to her sister, encouraging her to waddle back to dry land. 

Charlotte turned toward the horizon for a second, her fingers skirting the water’s surface as she bid it a whispered ‘goodbye’. As if it were a cherished pet nudging her side for attention. She made her way back and the waves dragged at the soaked fabrics of her skirts as she went. Allison pulled the thin blanket around her, though it hardly seemed to matter as on more than one occasion they’d seen other women in groups bathing in the waves in shifts that became virtually see-through in the water. Charlotte and Allison had blushed and turned away the first time they’d seen them. 

Their landlady had later explained that it was a custom in the little sea-side town to bath in large groups. The men did the same but on the other side of the shore that was blocked by high cliffs and thick olive groves. They had their own forms of modesty and both girls found they much rather preferred the relaxed nature of the locals, though both had only joined in a few times. Though they had been welcomed, the woman from which they rented their little cottage being pivotal in most of their interactions with the townsfolk, the Heywood sisters could not help the feeling of being outsiders. 

Though it had very little to do with the cultural or local barriers, but more from the fact that both felt as though they were on the run. Constantly aware that they were hiding. Charlotte had introduced herself as a penniless widow traveling with her sister. An older woman had heard their story from the place where they had been lodging temporarily until they could find work. In a twist of pure luck the woman, Mrs. Agessi, had been able to help them on both fronts. She was a dressmaker in need of seamstresses and her son had gone to live two towns over with his new bride- leaving behind a tiny cottage he’d inherited empty. 

So many things had worked out in their favor that Charlotte often wondered if she was dreaming. Though it was a notion always quickly dismissed. If it were a dream, he would be there. He was always there when she closed her eyes and he vanished when she woke, like smoke into the ether. Too evanescent to touch.

“How are you feeling?” Allison asked her not for the first time that day. She always asked as if it were in passing, unsuccessfully attempting to be casual with her concern. They both always remembered that first child, the little boy who came and went and nearly took his mother with him. They rarely spoke of it, but it hung over their heads everyday the second one waited to be born. 

They’d fought over it too. About whether to tell someone. First, Allison had lobbied to tell Sidney. That perhaps a child could prove the infertility lie not with him but his wife. It would be grounds for a divorce. She wasn’t proud of it, both sisters had always been acutely aware of how the law did not favor their sex and often sought to punish them for things beyond their control. To this Charlotte always countered with ‘the debts’. Eliza had come into her marriage with money but so much of that lay outside either of their control, namely the debt Sanditon owed to her personally for her investment and Tom‘s debts that lay in her father’s control. 

Charlotte had decided a long time ago that she would not tell Sidney. Maybe when the child was older, maybe someday when it was safer. When things might change… Until then, in her mind, Sidney could not mourn a loss he did not know existed. 

“Will you tell James?” Allison had asked, unable to argue her case against Charlotte’s wishes. She knew her sister was right, but she couldn’t help the nagging feeling in her chest that someone had to know. They had to tell someone. For the life of her, Allison couldn’t shake the notion. She was confident in her ability to help care for her sister and for the two of them to raise the child together. The idea sat in her gut like a stone and she didn’t know why. 

“James knows I was unfaithful. This could only suffice to hurt him further.” The last came out unsteady, the justification she wasn’t entirely sure of. 

Allison pursed her lips. “He has been unbelievably kind under the circumstances. He has essentially released you from your vows. He even sends money, Charlotte.” Charlotte looked toward the door, guilt fluttering in her chest as her hands unconsciously traced the curve of her stomach. “He should know the entire truth.”

Charlotte turned suddenly to Allison, her large doe eyes glassy. “He should know all the crimes set against him.” Allison’s mouth tightened. While she would not have put it in those terms, her sentiments were the same. 

“Charlotte,” She said, coming to sit beside her sister and laying one hand gently over hers. “I don’t think you owe the truth of this child’s circumstances to anyone. I think we can only move forward by being truthful. I fear that keeping this child a secret entirely could only suffice to burden you both… A burden I fear will only become heavier with time. Another error that would need to be rectified eventually.” 

Staring down at their clasped hands Charlotte smiled. “You are going to be a wonderful godmother.” Allison’s face lit up a little, returning the smile. 

  
  
  
  


……………………….

  
  
  


_ Dearest James, _

_ I hope this letter finds you well. Truly. After all that has passed, after all _

_ that you have done for me as well as my sister, please know that I only _

_ wish you happiness. Alas, it remains that I must lay one more truth at  _

_ your door. I am again with child. I have written to tell you in the hopes  _

_ that we can honor the decisions we’ve made to remain apart by not also _

_ allowing those spaces to become filled with secrets and lies. While I could _

_ never fully express the depths of my gratitude for all you have done, I still _

_ feel bound to also say that I ask nothing further from you beyond discretion. _

_ You have my eternal gratitude for all that you have done, not just for myself,  _

_ but for my sister as well. I write you this news not to provide you with further  _

_ burden or to hurt you, in fact it is very much the opposite. I feel you deserve _

_ my honesty above all others.  _

_ Sincerely,  _

_ Charlotte _

  
  


James was a good man. In many ways, he was even the better man.

Charlotte’s letter lay folded in the breast pocket of his coat and he resisted the urge to take it out and re-read it once more. He had hoped that a second or seventh viewing might give him some clarity, might reveal a plan which to follow. He could not think of one.

He does not know why he does not simply write a letter to tell Sidney Parker of this revelation. To let them deal with the consequences of their actions between the two of them. Or perhaps even simply send Charlotte more funds with which she and her sister could keep themselves. James knew why he didn’t go to her himself, against her wishes. Though there was a small part of him that still wanted to. 

They’d been right to let each other go. And as quickly as the urge to go to her, to fix all her problems, was. It was consistently followed by the memory of what it felt like to be the one who loved more. To be the one who felt like the ‘other’ in his own marriage. She might have loved him in her own way, but it took her leaving him to truly believe that it was not a love that could sustain him. 

As it stood, the coach he rode in was already rolling up the hills of Sanditon to the other man’s estate. He could see it looming closer and closer. A pale architecture diffused against a grey sky. Everything about it seemed ominous as he approached, as he dismounted from the carriage and his boots crunched unevenly into the gravel.

He was not the man he’d been when he last stepped foot there. A dreamer, still relatively penniless. His benefactor, his wife’s lover. No, he’d divested himself of a bad marriage. The clothes on his back, while minimal in deep blues, were free of dirt and grime and had been made precisely for him. He wasn’t wealthy by the standards of Sanditon but he was on his way, though France was recovering from hard times- it appeared that a vast majority of them were ready to put it behind them and build anew. In this regard he’d obtained several patrons to commission his work. 

As in all his endeavors, all he needed was time.

James lifted his hand to knock. The door swung open before he could make contact and no sooner had he given the doorman his name than he was being led up the stairs to wait for Mr. Parker in his study. A servant invited James to sit as he closed the doors behind him. James preferred to stand, examining the large study. It had an oddly old world feel to him now, after spending months in France. 

Sidney’s study was distinctly english. Heavy drapes of deep burgundy virtually poured around a triptych of floor to ceiling windows. The drapes he suspected weighed more than a few hundred pounds all together and were perhaps very adept at keeping out the cold ocean winds in the winter. The furniture was dark mahogany, stained virtually black. The desk was a monstrosity, at a little more the six feet tall James knew its length superseded his height. The room was kept pristine with little ornamentation. A large yellowish globe stood off to the side, a cart of spirits not far from that and gold sconces decorated the walls free of any portraits or paintings. 

Before James could ruminate any further on his rather depressing surroundings the doors behind him swung open harshly. A gust of wind coming with them as one Sidney Parker stood framed on the threshold, a puzzled and worried look on his face as he stared wordlessly at James. He was so surprised by his visitor that as he strode forward his years of training did not register immediately the fist that swung forward to clip him swiftly across the face. 

Sidney fell backward onto the floor, pain bursting under his skin and the coppery of taste of blood coating his tongue. James flexed his hand as he waited for Sidney to recover. He walked over to the tray of decanters and began to pour them both a glass of whiskey. He heard Sidney spit into the carpet behind him, as the other man struggled to stand. 

When James turned back to him, Sidney had slumped into one of the chairs holding his face and stretching his jaw against the incoming bruising and stiffness. He looked plainly at James as he took the glass offered to him before sitting in the opposite chair. “You held back.” He said almost gratefully.

James took a drink and gestured for Sidney to do the same. He smiled a little as Sidney winced, the sting of liquor burning against the fresh wounds inside his cheek. James nodded. “Yes.”

“Why?”

James took another drink from his glass. “Because I’m not here to kill you.”

“What are you here for?” There was worry in his voice, not for James or anything he might do, but for Charlotte. Always for Charlotte. James found that he didn’t even resent him at that moment. 

“How is your wife?”

Sidney took another painful drink and stared melancholy out the window. He could lie when the occasion called for it, however he found most often that he didn’t care to hide his true thoughts or even veil them for the sake of others. “As any warden, ever watchful.”

James nodded knowingly. He did not know Eliza well but on the occasion he had made her acquaintance she had appeared to wear a mask that never fully concealed her vapid disdain for him, his wife and his entire class. He had no doubt she would be the sort of wife to make a miserable husband. Though Charlotte had never spoken ill of her, Allison never failed to scoff comically at her mention even in somewhat serious situations. James thought vaguely of the other girl and found that he missed her brevity and biting wit.

“I am told you come alone?” Sidney said finally, impatiently. 

James twisted the glass in his hands. “She did not return with me.”

“Is she well.”

“Very. She is with child.” Sidney’s face fell and James knew he had mistaken his words. “Your child.” Sidney’s eyes went wide and his heart both sank and lept. Of all the things James could have come to say to him, to do, it never crossed his mind that it be to deliver such news. Sidney felt a sickness in his stomach, he had not seen or heard from Charlotte since Eliza had forced his hand and had her sent away. Nearly seven months ago. She’d carried their child in secret and alone. More than anything he wanted to jump from his chair, to go to her. 

Instead he looked to James with furrowed brows, “What will you do?”

“This.” James said cryptically. “We decided we could not go on as we were. She and her sister have been living in Italy nearly since we arrived in France. To live in secret until I could say she abandoned me and be granted an annulment. She wrote to me to tell me the truth not long ago and begged my discretion. From you specifically.”

Sidney looked at the other man quizzically. “What purpose do you serve?”

James moved to stand, setting his glass on the desk and adjusting his coat. “The purpose that relieves me of debt and duty. Not to say that I owe either of you anything, only that to inform you was, in my mind, the right thing to do. The burden of the news was unintentional on her part, I know. I came to tell you…” He paused, still looking for the right words. “... as it felt the only chance to free myself of it once and for all, and to do so in person. So that nothing would be mistaken or misconstrued.”

James pulled Charlotte’s letter from his coat and handed it to Sidney. “There is your destination.”

Sidney took the proffered letter, briefly examining the scrawl and recognizing it as hers. He ran his thumb over the right reverently. She was out there somewhere, with his child. Their child. “Thank you.” 

James began to take his leave when Sidney called out to him, their backs still turned to one another. “If there’s anything you ever need from me, you have only to ask.”

James said nothing but answered with a resounding soft click of the door falling shut behind him. He had no desire to have any further interaction with Sidney Parker. Though James knew he meant well, he wanted nothing more than to leave it all behind him. 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter guys and then ch. 21 will be a Q&A sort of thing.
> 
> Thank you for your wonderful comments, I swear I read every single one and they all save on my hard drive.

.

What James never knows, either upon arrival or departure, are the circumstances in which he finds Sidney. Sidney for his part does not enlighten the other man with details he knows he would not care to be aware of either way. It did not matter that he had received word from Eliza the day before of her father’s passing and that he was to travel immediately to London to attend his funeral with her. 

Eliza never communicated her feelings about her family to him, but from the way her father had doted on Eliza and the particular revulsion she took to the word ‘no’ or frankly refusal of any sort, Sidney concluded that they were close and her father had perhaps spoiled her from infancy. Her father on more than one occasion had tried to take Sidney under his tutelage at the bank, to which Sidney had always graciously refused- vowing his lifelong services to Sanditon. Sidney never had a chance to develop any sort of relationship with Eliza’s painfully small family as their relationship had turned sour by the time he was expected to.

Sidney had every intention of catching the coach later that day to meet his wife in London. Her father was dead. Her mother was widowed. She was half an orphan and he firmly believed after the funeral they would be taken aside and read his last will and testament. He had no sons, Eliza was his only child and it was nearly guaranteed that she would be left in controlling interest in everything. She might have to run everything by an appointed lawyer to act as her proxy. Still, he was being asked to witness her grip on him become binding and in perpetuity. 

They were just words now. 

Concepts that felt feeble and illusionary.

He was going to be a father. Charlotte was somewhere out there being brave and embarking into motherhood alone… There was a knock on the door again and he bid them enter. His servant came in and held out a tray to him with several letters. Sidney did not bother to read them. His decision was made the moment James uttered the words. He stood swiftly, snatching the letters and shoving them into the pocket of his coat. “Are my things ready?”

He looked to his desk, at the papers sitting in there. All the work he’d done sitting like a ticking clock that thundered in his subconscious. _Would it matter_? He had every intention that morning of going to Eliza, to see off probably the only human part of her. A man he hardly knew.... But now there was someone else waiting for him.

Someone who held everything that mattered. 

Someone who was the only thing that mattered anymore…

……………………….

  
  
  


_I have never loved another as I have loved you. Nor shall I ever again. This affection, this heart, my very life- if I could give you anything else- is yours. If I believed fortune or fine objects meant anything to you at all, they would be yours without question. When I said I was my best self with you, what I meant is that you make me want to be better. Every decent act I have committed since we were first acquainted has been because of if not entirely for you. There is no sun, no brightness on this earth without you. Bidding you farewell, not once but twice, has left its own devastation in my soul. There is not a day that I do not think of the spark of your touch, the curl of your hair or the warmth of your smile. Even more I think, I miss the wit and sharpness of your mind. Everyday I long to speak with you. I dream of your voice: reciting Heraclitus, telling me the colors of the sea or even that you love me as I love you. I miss you. There is a calamitus ache in me that is only relieved by your presence._

_Take me as I am, however you will. If all you can offer me is friendship I will endeavor to do my best to never fail you again._

_Always, with love- SP_

She keeps the letter tucked into the book he had sent her from his travels. The last time she saw him, in the safety of their little lighthouse, he’d pushed the letter into her hand. Explaining that he’d written it after he left her in Willingdon, when he decided to secure a permanent place for her in Sanditon. He told her he didn’t know why he never sent it to her but that his sentiments had not changed. He wanted her to know, always. That even whether he was letting her go or fighting to be together somehow someway, he would always be hers. In whatever role she needed him to be. 

“I miss him.” She said seemingly to no one, her fingers reverently tracing his signature. In fact she spoke to the baby growing inside her. Sometimes it seemed to get restless, turning over inside her, little feet striking out furiously. She had found over time that her voice seemed to be soothing, sometimes she’d read books but it seemed to like the rhythm of poetry best. That made her smile for some reason, as she’d never personally favored the format. It felt nice though, to learn more about a child who she had yet to meet. 

Charlotte thinks often of the sibling neither of them would ever meet, a little boy she wonders about often. A little boy no one had let her hold or even name. They’d simply taken him away and buried him, as if he’d never existed at all. She vowed to herself, sent her love out to wherever he was, that she wouldn’t forget him. In the end, she’d named him for herself. A name imprinted on her heart for all eternity, Jonathan. It had been her grandfather’s name. She’d never met him either but her father told stories so often she felt that she had. A sharp witted man who cared deeply for the people around him. 

Charlotte looks down again at herself, at her pregnant form and thinks about the baby growing in there. She’d come much further along than she had the first time, so far that she knew it would come soon. There was a woman in their village who had been training her sister in midwifery. Even the town’s physician had been a woman, though it seemed rampant rumors were that she was a witch of some sort. Charlotte paid the rumors no mind, commenting that if she was a witch it would be exceedingly interesting. 

Still the weight of that first loss hung over her every passing day like guillotine waiting to be loosed. While she could enjoy most things it still prevented her from planning. From raising her hopes and expectations in fear of all of it never coming to fruition. It was times like that she missed Sidney the most, his reassuring presence and way of saying things that fit perfectly into those hollow places in her soul. 

……………………

It takes him a little more than a week of traveling. Everyday he lives in impatience, but every mile closer he feels elation growing in him. As if all his problems seemed to get smaller and smaller as the distance grew between himself and Sanditon. Even when he’d fall into eventual sleep, his body frustrated with the time he felt he was losing, he’d awake renewed in his purpose. His vigor to start the life he truly wanted feeling that much closer. He felt promise and excitement.

When Sidney finally makes his way to the small town inscribed on her letter he pays a stranger to take him and his things directly there. He is ogled somewhat strangely, a frenzied looking gentleman clearly lacking sleep and willing to ride a creaky cart carrying bales of wool. Bits of which puffed into the air with every jostling over the rocky paths. Sticking to his clothes and hat. He laughed though, to even his own surprise. That he would see her again, looking as frazzled and disheveled as he felt. 

Sidney barely waited for them to come to a complete stop before leaping down from the seat and running to the door. His heart felt as if it were going to fly out of his chest as he pounded anxiously on the small wooden door. It felt like ages, as if it were the longest part of his entire journey, waiting for the door to creak open- revealing Allison’s bewildered face.

He didn’t give her a chance to speak as he carefully moved past her into the house. “Charlotte!” He called out as he pulled off his hat and looked around expectantly. He called out for her again. Then it was as if a magnetic force were pulling him forward. As though a chord were tethered between them, guiding him in her direction. He saw a door that lay slightly ajar ahead of him and on instinct pushed it open. His hat slipped from his fingers with a soft quiet thud.

It was as if history were repeating itself.

The bloody sheets crumpled at the foot of the bed, her skin translucent as she lay there- looking up at him with bleary eyes and a weak smile on pale lips. He could hear their dreams falling around them like shattering glass, cutting at him as he remained frozen. His insides plummeted as he half-turned to look back behind him, hoping it was all a dream. A horrible nightmare he was having that he could awaken from. 

No. It wasn’t a dream. It was the first time he really looked at Allison. Saw her as frozen as him in front of an open door. Her eyes were rimmed red and her mouth was a tight line as she stared at him. There was an almost imperceptible shake of her head, as if to say ‘no’ to whatever he might ask. It didn’t matter what the question was, ‘no’ seemed the only communication she could muster. 

Sidney knew what she meant, the things she could not voice. 

Charlotte, his Charlotte, was dying. Charlotte who saw the world and learned more about human nature than he could ever begin to understand, simply from opening a book. Beautiful, opinionated, passionate, intelligent, dancing, flower-picking, sea-loving, fearless Charlotte. She stood at death's door, as if it had been chasing her since birth. Reluctantly, Sidney turned back to the woman in the room, closing the door gently behind him. He wanted to be alone with her. He stepped forward until he could kneel beside her bed. 

“You came back for me.” She said, her voice weak and strained as she struggled to smile at him. 

Sidney swallowed at the lump in his throat, fighting the tears as he lifted a trembling hand to her forehead. “I made a promise.” He said softly, as if his very words might break the spell that kept her with him. A fragile tether that seemed to fray a little more every moment. 

“Mmm.” She said, pushing past a painful swallow. “We have a little girl.” Her expression was heartbreakingly happy, as if she could not have cared less about the cost. As if everything that had led her to this point: betrayal, heartbreak, adultery, deception- as if it had all been worth it. Because there was a baby girl somewhere in the tiny shabby home. A little girl with her father’s dark eyes and her mother’s chestnut curls. A little girl who would grow up to rail and rage against societal expectations and faith and fate itself, because it took her mother- piece by piece until she was only dust and ash and memory.

He wanted to find the joy in that small victory, but in that moment he could only see the shades of struggle and loss that composed a beautiful picture. There was only a deep anger that fate was taking one life from him as if in exchange for another. The pain that he could not be the one to forfeit himself in that place, so that they both could live. “That’s wonderful.” He said anyway, knowing how much it meant to her. 

Charlotte was not fooled however, and lifted her hand to stroke his cheek, a little frown of seriousness. “Don’t be angry.” Her words woeful for so many reasons.

He snatched her hand and clutched it close, hanging his head as the sadness and defeat rushed forth. For once he acknowledged that was unfair, that the punishment did not fit the crime. Again, reading his thoughts as she always did, an uncannily consistent skill of hers, she said, “It isn’t fair.” Sidney gritted his teeth but could not stop the trembling rage and sorrow that racked his body. “I chose this…” She whispered, waiting for him to look at her again. “I choose you. Even if it meant we could only ever have moments, I would rather die with the comfort of those moments- than live to be an old lady having never felt something so special and wonderful with you…”

_A lifetime wouldn’t have been enough, Sidney Parker…_

He took a deep breath. “I remember the first time I saw you, on the road with Mary.”

She laughed, but it came out as gentle as a sigh. “You asked if I was a maid.”

He smiled back, wiping at his face with his sleeve. “I knew. I knew you weren’t a maid.” He saw her face furrow in confusion as she waited for him to explain. “I never forgot your name from the moment Mary uttered it… I think, the moment I saw you- something in me was just… terrified.” He looked down at the hand he still held, his thumbs running over the skin. She felt cold. “I think I was drawn to you, the moment I saw you. The last time I had felt that way, it had been for Eliza. I wanted to protect myself from that again, I wanted to prove that you were no better. That if I was rude and harsh, that it might make you show your true colors. That you would prove me right in believing you would only hurt me…”

She bit her lip, almost looking guilty. “You showed yourself, Charlotte. You proved to be someone anyone would go to hell and back for. I fell in love with you a little more everyday that you refused to placate me or submit to my dismissiveness of you or your beliefs. I fought it, because I thought- even if she is so wonderful, a woman like that could never love me as much as I could love her. That we would forever be unequal in affection, that I would suffer for it… No one saw me, before you. Not entirely. You saw me and loved me anyway and I never truly doubted that.”

“Thank you, for loving me so much Sidney Parker.” She said softly.

He smiled painfully back at her. “Thank you, Charlotte Heywood, for making life so wonderful.” She veritably beamed at him. 

Charlotte closed her eyes briefly as she said, “I named her Kore, from the myth.” Sidney smiled and pressed a kiss to her lips. And when he pulled away she recited, “ _She is the reason for the seasons, when winter fades she brings flowers and sunshine in her wake…_ Kore Parker.” Sidney pushed back her hair. He knew what Charlotte meant. This was winter, the death that came so that something new could grow in its place. “Don’t let her forget me.” She said suddenly, her features collapsing a little as she began to cry. Sidney shook his head vehemently, “Never, I promise. I promise…” He kissed her hand, “I’ll never let you go.” 

Her hand slackens and when he looks up at her again… Her eyes stare off unfocused and empty. There was no more light, no flickering embers or shadow-like heartbeats. There was only a dead girl who was not Charlotte anymore. His hand shakes uncontrollably as he closes her eyes, and for a moment it looks as if she were only sleeping. Dreaming. He fought the urge to shake her awake, to scream at her and shout for her to wake up. That he still needed her... her daughter, her sister- they all still wanted her. They still needed her.

He wanted to shake himself awake. 

Sidney felt a guttural cry tear through him, primal and unrestrained. There was nothing else he could do except to scream in to the void the world had become, the was no sun, no warmth and no light without her. His hands fisting in the sheets around her as he screamed against the pain and felt the way the sound tore at his vocal chords. Tears streamed down his face as he begged in a raw broken scream, “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” Over and over again, “Please wake up!” He shook the bed, gripped at the frame until it felt as if his bones were splintering inside his skin, still screaming the words nonsensically. Suddenly a pair of arms pulled tightly around him, too slender for the strength with which they held him. He knew it was Allison and he collapsed into her without question. 

A partner in his grief, his hands fisted in her clothes. He was no longer too proud to ask for the comfort he needed. It felt as if he were viscerally being torn apart, her hold the only thing keeping him from crumbling into nothing. She cried too as she held him, silently rocking him back and forth against her as if he were a little boy again. They were a crumple on the floor, united in sorrow as they each tried to hold the other together. “I’m not ready.” He said. For what exactly he couldn’t articulate right then. He just wasn’t ready for any of it. To be a parent alone. To say goodbye. To admit that the love of his life, his soulmate and match in every measure… was gone. For the story to be over.

Allison distantly heard the baby crying in the other room. As if she too felt the sorrow, unable to understand what she'd truly lost. Only that something, someone, was gone that shouldn't be. 

Later, when Sidney had the presence of mind to ask Allison exactly what had happened, she would tell him that Charlotte had given birth two days before he arrived. That the physician couldn’t stop the bleeding after and though the baby had been born perfectly healthy, there was fever and infection even when she could not recover from the blood loss. She explained that there was little reason for why Charlotte had lingered so long. That perhaps she was the fighting sort, and her body refused to let go. To give in. 

Allison would put a firm grip on his hand and say, “I think she knew you would come. I think she stayed for you, as long as she could. She believed in you.”

.


	20. Chapter 20

,

He feels a little like a shadow when he enters his home again. Weeks later with a baby girl cradled in his arms. He was not surprised to see his wife standing atop the stairs, as a cold a greeting as he anticipated. She bore down on him with hateful eyes. Hateful eyes on him, and then, down in shock at what he carried. Eliza virtually sneered and seethed at the bundle in his arms, though she could not see a face she heard a soft cooing sound and knew it was a child. For all her faults, stupidity was not one of them. In fact, Eliza was in many ways more than intelligent- a gift vastly sharpened by almost cruel practicality. “What is that?” Her voice a choke as a familiar feeling of fury lodged itself like a stone in her throat.

Sidney looked up at her, unstung by her venom as he answered, “This is my daughter.”

A crackling rage lit behind her eyes as her breath came faster and her cheeks burned bright. “Get rid of it.” She ground out. “I won’t stand for the child of your whore in this house!” Not even that Sidney had been unfaithful, as she knew he had been and believed he would be again. It was the mother that cut the deepest. Charlotte. The other woman was more than a thorn in Eliza’s side, she was… the light that cast a very cold and dark shadow in which Eliza felt she lived. Slowly withering and rotting away into something she didn’t recognize.

The baby began to fuss and Eliza descended the stairs. He was unmoved by her outburst, tucking the swaddling around the baby and bouncing her soothingly in his arms. Murmuring words she could not make out. “We have business to discuss.” He said finally. Sidney gestured for the maid to take the baby and instructed her to lay her down in his chambers to sleep and to not leave her side until he went to retrieve her himself.

Eliza could only watch helplessly as the maid did as she was told and Sidney walked without another word into his study. She followed him reluctantly, determined to keep her composure as he gestured for her to sit. She waited for him to do so first before complying, knowing he was hiding something. He was too calm, too sure.

“I am truly sorry I was not here to accompany you to your father’s funeral.” He began.

She scoffed. “Do not pretend you care for my pains, Sidney. I know you well. You want something…” Even now her gown was black, a thin black ribbon tying of the end of her long golden braid that laid perfectly over one shoulder.

He gave a heavy sigh, not in exasperation or anger, but because what he had to say to her would be long and arduous. He pulled a letter, crumpled and stained from his pocket and handed it to her. “That is from your family’s lawyer. I received it before I left but was unable to read it immediately. My delay in relaying its information to you is unintentional and not from negligence or malice.” He thought of that morning, the brief gap between James leaving his study and his decision to go after Charlotte- he’d been handed the seemingly innocuous letter. Without a thought he had shoved it into his breast pocket, forgotten for days until after the funeral. The day after she passed the woman who had graciously opened her home and generosity to the two women provided for them yet again in selling Sidney the little house and helping them to bury Charlotte beside it. Allison had suggested they bring her home. Sidney told her he couldn’t bear to keep her in a box like that, carting her corpse around. They agree that there in Italy was where she’d been happiest. And so they’d buried her in a spot beside the house. Mrs. Agessi brought a sapling to plant with Charlotte’s body. She promised that she would tend to it in their absence, until they returned.

Allison was keeping herself busy as they prepared to return to Sanditon with the baby. She’d been about to wash his clothes when she found the letters. Sidney had forgotten about them entirely, only reading their contents the day before they left Italy. 

Eliza frowned at him, the letter laying oddly weightless atop her fingertips, feather-light from being folded and re-read so many times. “What does it say?”

Sidney looked away for a moment, before speaking again. His gaze captured for a moment by a bird resting on his window, a little nest that hadn’t been there before. “It contains your father’s last will and testament. As you are his only child, he sought to ensure your comfort. As your husband however, he left everything… the money, the properties, as well as his controlling shares of the bank were left to me.”

Eliza was trembling in earnest, the letter now crushed in her slim hands as her eyes went wide. Panic filled every space in her and her eyes prickled with tears. 

She’d lost. 

All her life, she’d only ever been able to count on her father. Her mother had always been dismissive of her, as were both of her husbands… But her father had always been a shining light in her life, her comfort and joy. When all else in her world seemed to fail, he was always the one she turned to. She didn’t even have control of the funds her first husband had left her, they’d been consolidated into her account that had been controlled by her father- which now also belonged to her husband. This she had never confided in Sidney, had let him believe she had her own money. She had orchestrated it so that not all the money had come into the marriage with her, the majority of it seemingly still in her control. Her father the unseen hand she never explicitly disclosed.

“You can’t do this.” She whispered.

To her surprise his look was gentle and even empathic to a degree. “I can… but I won’t.”

“What?” She breathed, a sob caught in her throat. 

“I will release the properties your family holds to you. The house in London, the apartments in Paris and Versaille as well as the estate in Brighton. The funds from your first marriage and your dowry will be returned to you. Within that will be your initial investment in Sanditon, of which you will no longer have any part in. I will keep the shares in the bank and they have invited me to fill your father’s position, which I will accept.”

Her trembling subsided but she still remained on her guard. “How generous of you, husband. I suppose your newly found conscience would like nothing in return?”

Sidney reached into his desk and pulled a leather fold of papers that he had acquired some time before- waiting for the moment when he would be able to use them. He slid them seamlessly across the surface of his desk toward her. “A petition for divorce…”

She shook her head, a sardonic smile maring her pretty features. “You could have just slandered me. Told them I was unfaithful, say that I deceived you in some way.” She glanced toward the door. “Tell them I’m barren…” Her voice turned sad suddenly. “They’d let you set me aside for that alone.”

Sidney stood and poured them both a glass before coming to sit in the chair directly beside her. He pushed one of the glasses into her limp hand as he took a swig from his own. “I am tired of us hurting one another Eliza. And to what end?” He watched her take a sip. “I wish to release you but, do not mistake me. If you do not sign the papers of your own freewill, I will do whatever it takes to divest us of this prison of a union. I only hope that we might try to retain some dignity in doing so.”

She downed the contents of her glass, staring fixated at the papers. She looked for all the world sad and defeated, her voice surprisingly quiet. “Where is it’s mother? Can she not at least face me? She did win after all.”

Sidney did not flinch as he said simply, “Charlotte is dead.” He’d had to say them so much since it had happened that they rang hollow in him. They no longer meant anything, no longer sounded or felt like anything coherent. Just words. A fact. Like it had happened to someone else, to people he didn’t know.

When Eliza turned toward him he did not look away. As they held each other’s gaze she felt a little wavy of pity. They were both at their lowest somehow, and each knew it of the other. As if, for the first time since they’d met, there was nothing to hide and they saw each other almost too clearly. Sidney had been right before. She was tired of hurting him. Of twisting herself into knots to do so. Without a word she stood and picked up the quill from his desk. Eliza lifted the leather cover to scratch her signature twice across the cream colored paper.

Eliza stared out the window, at the smooth cliffside and rolling waves beyond it. “I’d like to be in London by tonight. Please have the servants pack my things.” She set the quill down with a quiet click and faced Sidney head on. She could not find it in herself to comfort him, but she was done fighting at the very least. 

The war was over, she decided, and walked out of the room and up the stairs to her room. 

There was a dead girl somewhere that held half his heart for all eternity, and a living one upstairs with her father’s eyes and her mother’s hair who held the rest.

.


	21. Chapter 21

**Q & A**

  * I'm sorry there wasn't a HEA. In all fairness I put as many cautions as I could without revealing there would be a character death. SPOILER ALERT: Cathy dies at the end of Wuthering Heights and honestly its arguably not even the worst thing that happens in the book.



  * The title, _Awaken, My Darling_ , is from the song 'Awaken' by Klergy to which there is a Sidlotte MV over on youtube using the song. This however is just coincidence.



  * This was always the ending to the story. I heard the song and kind of just started daydreaming a more fitting end for Sidlotte. Lives ruined and bloodshed, that sort of thing. I did try rewriting the end due to so many people begging for a HEA. However nothing I wrote felt right and in the end it wasn't what I wanted to write.



  * I did read some comments that said I did promise a HEA, I don't recall making this promise as I always intended to have Charlotte die in the end. I did confirm it was a Sidlotte centric story when people were concerned I was favoring her relationship with Stringer and if it was going to be a trashy love triangle. Which I'm not opposed to, I love trashy triangles, it's a guilty pleasure for me. I find them fun to both read and write.



  * **Why write something even sadder than that BS finale? Like I mentioned before, I really just like to write tragic and emotional stories. **



  * Some background for Stringer. He does go into the marriage knowing that Sidney was her first love, he is also willfully blind to the presence of that connection. I wanted to set him up as someone hopeful who wanted to prove, more to himself, that he could be the love of her life. That maybe they were the soulmates.



  * There is a hinted chemistry between Allison & James. I don't know that its something Ill ever write, mostly because I'm not sure anyone would be interested or invested. I think of them as more almost lovers, I imagine them meeting up throughout the years. In that way that they'd know they could really fall in love but that maybe they struggle with all the history between them. 



  * I also have to say the hashtag #treefic, the comments threads on other platforms, WHEN YOU GUYS QUOTE MY STUFF BACK TO ME!! Like, I felt the love. It made my year and I'll always appreciate the time you guys take to comment and kudo and just generally be the coolest kids on the block. It really means so much to know how you all connect with the work, even if it makes you furious or happy or really really bummed. 



  * If your interested my writing playlist is over on spotify under 'Sidlotte' and the creator name is 'yowidethighs' ;)



  * I think that's everything. Please don't hate me for the ending, even if it is devastating I hope the reading was still worthwhile. Feel free to leave any questions in the comments on this chapter. I'd be happy to answer.



Thanks guys!


End file.
